Hengeler Mueller advises RWE on sale of majority stake in transmission grid operator Amprion

14. July 2011

RWE AG has sold a majority stake in its subsidiary Amprion GmbH to an investor consortium advised by Commerz Real AG. The investor group includes in particular insurance companies, pension funds and professional pension schemes. Amprion GmbH is a major transmission grid operator in Europe, running the largest extra high-voltage transmission network (220 kV und 380 kV) in Germany at a length of 11,000 kilometres. Via this network, the company supplies an area of more than 73,000 square kilometres with an excess of 27 million people.

Hengeler Mueller has been advising RWE AG. The Hengeler Mueller team was led by partners Matthias Hentzen and Thomas Meurer (Corporate/M&A) and included partners Dirk Uwer (Energy/Environmental Law), Hartwin Bungert (Corporate), Daniel Wilm (Insurance Supervisory Law) (all Düsseldorf) and Ernst-Thomas Kraft (Tax), Christian Hoefs (Labour) (both Frankfurt) as well as associates Sebastian Schneider, Benjamin Leyendecker-Langner, Holger Michael Kleinhenz and Sven Greulich (all Düsseldorf).

Amprion GmbH was refinanced to redeem the group financing. Hengeler Mueller advised on the refinancing. The team included partners Thomas Cron and Heinrich Knepper as well as associate Jan Penselin (all Frankfurt).

Back in December 2010, Hengeler Mueller had advised RWE AG on the sale of Thyssengas which operates the German supra-regional gas transportation network. Previously, Hengeler Mueller had represented TenneT on the acquisition of E.ON’s transmission network and one of the bidders for Vattenfall’s transmission network. Hengeler Mueller has thus been involved in all major divestitures of transport grid operators in Germany.