Aker Solutions is seeking to raise a total of Nkr1bn ($111m) for fresh investments in renewables and low-carbon projects through the spin-off of its offshore wind and carbon capture businesses into separate stocklisted entities.
The Norwegian contractor on Wednesday launched share issues in the form of private placements for the newly minted Aker Offshore Wind and Aker Carbon Capture units, priced respectively at Nkr1.47 and Nkr1.70 per share.
The proposed flotation on the Merkur Market of the Oslo bourse values the respective companies at Nkr400m and Nkr460m, with the first day of trading to be 26 August.
More than 340 million shares will be issued in Aker Offshore Wind and over 294m in Aker Carbon Capture in the offering targeted at existing investors in Aker Solutions to raise Nkr500m in each of the subsidiaries.
Holding company Aker ASA will guarantee a full subscription of the private placements subject to a minimum subscription of Nkr320m in Aker Offshore Wind and Nkr330m in Aker Carbon Capture.
The pair of subsidiaries are being spun off to boost growth and value creation in the two emerging business areas as Aker Solutions targets a growing pipeline of lucrative opportunities worldwide in both floating wind and carbon capture, utilisation and storage.
At the same time, the contractor is merging with affiliate Kvaerner, with both owned by Aker ASA, in order to give it greater engineering and fabrication clout as it pursues more work in the green energy transition to counter a drop in orders in its traditional oil and gas business.
Capital injection
“Offshore wind and carbon capture will require a fresh injection of new capital to take us to the next level. They have more potential as standalone companies rather than as part of our oil and gas business,” Aker ASA chief executive Oyvind Eriksen told a recent presentation in connection with the restructuring.
He said Aker, backed by billionaire industrialist Kjell Inge Rokke, would “retain its role as a majority shareholder and will be a driving force in the development of both companies”.
Aker Offshore Wind is seeking to both develop and operate floating wind projects, initially off South Korea, the US West Coast and in the North Sea off Norway and Scotland.
Aker Carbon Capture is targeting development of a carbon capture facility at the Norcem cement plant in southern Norway as part of the Equinor-led Northern Lights CCUS project, and also has an estimated $16.1bn pipeline of project opportunities worldwide.
Both entities form part of the newly created Aker Horizons unit, led by Rokke’s son Kristian Rokke, that is wholly owned by Aker ASA and will also include soon-to-be acquired onshore wind player NBT.
This article first appeared in Recharge's sister title Upstream
