Rautenberg Moritz & Co. advises Ardian on its minority investment into EWE AG.

The team of Rautenberg Moritz & Co. advised Ardian comprehensively on the investment of its Ardian Infrastructure Fund V into EWE AG of Oldenburg, Germany. Signing took place on 6 December 2019; Closing of the transaction is expected for March 2020.

Ardian is a world-leading private investment house with assets of US$96 billion managed or advised in Europe, the Americas and Asia. The company is majority-owned by its employees. It keeps entrepreneurship at its heart and focuses on delivering excellent investment performance to its global investor base. Through its commitment to shared outcomes for all stakeholders, Ardian’s activities fuel individual, corporate and economic growth around the world. Holding close its core values of excellence, loyalty and entrepreneurship, Ardian maintains a truly global network, with more than 640 employees working from fifteen offices across Europe (Frankfurt, Jersey, London, Luxembourg, Madrid, Milan, Paris and Zurich), the Americas (New York, San Francisco and Santiago) and Asia (Beijing, Singapore, Tokyo and Seoul). It manages funds on behalf of more than 1,000 clients through five pillars of investment expertise: Fund of Funds, Direct Funds, Infrastructure, Real Estate and Private Debt.

EWE is an innovative service provider active in the business areas of energy, telecommunications and information technology. With over 8,500 employees and sales of around EUR 5.7 billion in 2018, EWE is one of the largest utility companies in Germany. The company, based in Oldenburg, Lower Saxony, is primarily owned by the local government. It provides electricity to around 1.4 million customers in northwest Germany, Brandenburg, the island of Rügen and parts of Poland, and supplies natural gas to almost 0.8 million customers. It also provides approximately 0.7 million customers with telecommunications services. To achieve this, the various companies in the EWE Group operate over 190,000 kilometres of electricity grid, natural gas grid and telecommunications networks. EWE intends to invest over EUR 1.2 billion in a comprehensive fibre-optic expansion over the coming years, creating the foundation for the digitalisation of northwest Germany.

The team around Arndt Rautenberg advised the buyer throughout the entire M&A process, including the commercial due diligence on EWE's telecommunications activities and a fully-fledged value creation plan. In addition, we developed a comprehensive financial model and significantly supported the M&A Lead Advisory through the entire negotiation phase up to the successful signing.