The energy company is setting its goals higher for the current year.
(Photo: dpa)
Dusseldorf In January, RWE surprised with record results for 2021. The next record could follow in 2022: the Essen-based energy company announced a significant increase in the annual forecast on Thursday.
According to this, RWE expects adjusted EBITDA at group level for the current year to be between 3.6 and four billion euros. So far, the company had promised a range of 3.3 to 3.6 billion. The group cited a “dynamic market price environment” as the reason for the increased forecast.
The prices for electricity, gas and other energy sources have risen, sometimes drastically, in recent months. The price of natural gas alone has more than quadrupled within a year. After the forecast increase, the RWE share rose by more than five percent to EUR 38.78 on Thursday morning. This is the highest level in almost eleven years.
Despite the record prices, the transformation from the former coal giant to one of the largest providers of green electricity in Europe is in full swing. With the help of an investment offensive worth billions, RWE wants to expand its green capacities from the current 25 to 50 gigawatts by 2030.
Top jobs of the day
Find the best jobs now and
be notified by email.
At the beginning of February, RWE announced that it would spend four billion euros on setting up a hydrogen economy in North Rhine-Westphalia alone. This sum is intended to create, among other things, capacities for green hydrogen with a capacity of 700 megawatts, two gigawatts in the form of hydrogen-capable gas power plants and one gigawatt of renewable energies.
>> Read here: RWE is investing four billion euros in NRW
However, the business with fossil energies is still significantly more lucrative for RWE than alternative energies. The planned conversion is clearly too slow for the activist investors from Enkraft Capital. They are calling for the lignite activities to be spun off “to maintain RWE’s competitiveness and to ensure sustainable, long-term success on the capital market,” wrote Managing Director Benedikt Kormaier last week in a letter to RWE Supervisory Board Chairman Werner Brandt. The letter is available to the Handelsblatt.
Enkraft had already called for more speed with the new strategy last year. Activist shareholders fear the coal deal could negatively impact the group’s overall valuation. However, according to the latest information, Enkraft only holds slightly more than 500,000 shares in RWE. Overall, however, the energy company has 672 million shares outstanding.
Criticism of the RWE supervisory board
The two fund managers directly criticize the supervisory board. Unfortunately, previous talks did not indicate “that the Executive Board is responsibly driving forward what is probably the most strategically important topic for RWE, the separation and cessation of lignite activities, with the necessary urgency and transparency”. The impression is reinforced that the Supervisory Board only marginally deals with the major strategic issues facing the Group.
That is why Brandt, as chairman of the supervisory board, should come to an honest assessment together with the other members as to whether the supervisory body and the individual members on the shareholder side are able and willing to support the executive board in the upcoming decisions.
The answer from the Essen headquarters followed immediately last Thursday. In a letter, the head of the supervisory board, Brandt, rejects the criticism, after all “the corporate strategy is the direct focus of the supervisory board’s activities”.
At the Annual General Meeting last year, care was taken to complement candidates with expertise in the fields of renewable energies, new technologies and digitization. “The Supervisory Board was very closely involved in the development of the ‘Growing Green’ strategy,” emphasized Brandt. And we stand behind this strategy.
More: Coal business worth billions: Why RWE even earns money from rising CO2 prices
