(Bloomberg) -- Morgan Stanley's infrastructure arm agreed to buy German wind farm operator PNE Wind AG for 300 million euros ($331 million), highlighting investor appetite for renewable energy.
PNE Wind's board accepted a bid of 4 euros a share from Morgan Stanley Infrastructure Partners, which intends to delist the stock, according to a statement Thursday that confirms an earlier Bloomberg News report.
Demand for renewable energy is rising amid falling prices and an investor push to curb emissions and fight climate change. Honda Motor Co. agreed last month to buy 320 megawatts of electricity from wind and solar farms in Texas and Oklahoma, the biggest ever clean-power purchase by an automaker.
The PNE deal still needs to meet a minimum acceptance threshold of 50% of the shares plus one to become final, and not all investors are in favor.
“Based on the strong planning and development pipeline, the proposed offer fundamentally undervalues the company,” Enkraft Capital Managing Director Benedikt Kormaier said in an email. The investor earlier threatened an audit of the sale if PNE couldn't show that a the company had run a standard auction.
It's “distressing to see the management and supervisory boards trying to enable MSIP to acquire a large stake in the company below market value and attempting to force shareholders out of the company by threatening to delist shares,” he said in the email.
PNE rose as much as 5.8% in Frankfurt. The shares have gained 65% this year.
To contact the reporters on this story: Eyk Henning in Frankfurt at ehenning1@bloomberg.net;Gillian Tan in New York at gtan129@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Kenneth Wong at kwong11@bloomberg.net, John Lauerman, Marthe Fourcade
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