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Spain’s stock market regulator suspended trading in Siemens Gamesa’s shares after Expansion newspaper said Siemens AG (OTC:SIEGY) had hired Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS) to review options for the Spain-based business including a possible takeover and withdrawal from the market.
Expansion said Siemens AG had hired the bank through Siemens Energy, which owns 67% of Siemens Gamesa. The conglomerate holds 35% of Siemens Energy, and another 10% via its pension fund.
The paper said Siemens had also hired Deutsche Bank (DE:DBKGn) to give an independent valuation.
Hours after the shares were suspended, Siemens Energy wrote in a letter to the Spanish regulator that its stake in Siemens Gamesa was part of a regular review of its assets, and said it had not hired either of the banks named.
“While we can of course not exclude any scenario in the future, we can confirm that SIEAG (Siemens Energy) is currently not working on a takeover bid in relation to SGRE (Siemens Gamesa),” the letter said.
At current market valuations, the 33% share Siemens Energy does not own in Siemens Gamesa, is worth around 5.7 billion euros ($6.96 billion).
Shares in Siemens Energy retreated after gaining as much as 4% on the news, while Siemens Gamesa’s stock rose more than 3.5% after the suspension was lifted.
Siemens Energy Chief Executive Christian Bruch said earlier this month it was too early to talk about buying out the rest of Siemens Gamesa, but that this would become an issue at some point.
A full takeover would allow the parent to have full control of cash flows and speed up decision-making around divestments and acquisitions because it could bypass minority shareholders, a banker in the sector said.
Siemens Gamesa was formed in 2017 through a merger of Spain’s Gamesa and what was then the wind business of Siemens.
($1 = 0.8191 euros)
