Vestas Makes Offshore Move, to Acquire MHI’s Share in MHI Vestas

Vestas and MHI have signed an agreement which will see Vestas acquire MHI’s shares in the MHI Vestas Offshore Wind joint venture

Vestas Wind Systems, a world leader in sustainable energy solutions, and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI), a leading global manufacturing and engineering firm, have signed an agreement to expand their partnership in sustainable energy. The strengthened partnership entails that Vestas will acquire MHI’s shares in the MHI Vestas Offshore Wind (MVOW) joint venture, and MHI will acquire 2.5 percent in Vestas and be nominated to a seat in Vestas’ Board of Directors.

Vestas is to acquire MHI’s 50 percent share of the MVOW joint venture against 5,049,337 shares in Vestas that will be issued at closing of the transaction, corresponding to 2.5 percent of Vestas’ nominal share capital after the capital increase. The transaction has a value of approximately EUR 709 million, as per recent market estimates.

Through the strengthened partnership, Vestas makes an emphatic long-term move in offshore wind energy to become a leading player in offshore wind by 2025 and to expand the two companies’ overall leadership in sustainable energy. A new offshore wind turbine platform will also be imminently introduced to improve efficiency and drive the levelised cost of energy further down. The companies also aim to meet customer needs across a wider range of the value chain and increase their global leadership in sustainable energy solutions. To that end and underlining the long-term goal of the agreement, Vestas and MHI will also plan for collaborating in green hydrogen as well as a joint venture in Japan to secure accelerated growth for onshore and offshore wind energy.

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Henrik Andersen, Group President and CEO of Vestas, said “Vestas is the leader in onshore wind, but to accelerate the energy transition and achieve our vision we must play a larger role in offshore wind. On behalf of all of Vestas, I’m therefore very excited that Mitsubishi Heavy Industries shares Vestas’ vision to become a leading player in offshore wind energy in the long term and will strengthen our partnership by becoming a large shareholder and part of Vestas’ Board of Directors. Offshore wind is key to creating a sustainable planet for future generations and offers unique growth, and with today’s announcement we underline that we want to be an integral part of both.”

In Japan, the two companies will establish a joint venture for sales of onshore and offshore wind power turbines and Vestas will as part of the collaboration plan for establishing parts of its regional supply chain and production in Japan should market volume and cost-competitiveness allow.

Seiji Izumisawa, President and CEO of MHI, said “we are very pleased to be able to expand our cooperation and collaboration with Vestas, now more than ever, under the backdrop of increasing need for cleaner and more economical energy worldwide. We will continue to strengthen business cooperation by leveraging our respective strengths to support the growth of clean energy around the world, especially in Japan.”

Through the agreement, the two companies seek to accelerate their overall growth journey by integrating onshore and offshore platforms and leveraging Vestas’ strengths in both segments. Specifically, this entails a stronger integration between onshore and offshore technology and modular frameworks.

On a stand-alone basis, MVOW is expected to report a consolidated revenue for 2020 of approx. EUR 1.4 billion, with an EBIT margin of around 4 percent. The closing of the transaction is expected to take place within either the fourth quarter of 2020 or the first quarter of 2021.