Vestas Wind Systems A/S (Vestas) and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. (MHI) announced an agreement to expand their partnership in wind 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.
The transaction between Vestas and MHI was subject to regulatory approvals by the competition authorities and with reference to Company Announcement No. 42/2020 of 27 November 2020, the two companies today received the official approval of the transaction from the European Commission.
Henrik Andersen, Group President and CEO of Vestas, said: “With today’s approval of the transaction we are excited to move one step closer towards welcoming offshore back into the Vestas family. I’m personally very encouraged by the many dialogues I’ve had with both Vestas and MHI Vestas Offshore Wind colleagues as well as our customers and partners since we announced the strengthened partnership with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. It’s clear that everyone is excited about our bold step together towards accelerating the energy transition.”
Since the announcement, planning of integration of MVOW into the Vestas group has been initiated, focusing on smooth integration of employees and systems and realising synergies in sales, technology, manufacturing footprint and procurement to sustain customer relationships, lower costs and build a strong shared Vestas culture.
Following closing of the transaction, full planning of the integration will commence. Vestas aims to create a shared culture embracing everyone who wants to accelerate the energy transition and live by the Vestas values of Passion, Accountability, Simplicity and Collaboration. The integration will focus on paving the way for harmonious integration of processes and systems across Vestas and MVOW, while building avenues towards the overall unification of both companies to leverage our strengths. However, first and foremost, the focus is to plan a smooth and welcoming onboarding to the new colleagues from MVOW.
Final closing of the transaction is expected to take place before year end. Until closing, Vestas and MVOW will continue to execute as two independent companies, with just a small number of Vestas employees engaged in planning the future integration of the two companies.
