Vestas Wind Systems’ plans to buy-up Mitsubishi Heavy Industries’ (MHI) stake in its MHI Vestas offshore wind turbine joint venture has received regulatory approval from the European Commission.

The deal, though which MHI will acquire 2.5% of Vestas with a nominated seat on the Danish OEM’s board of directors, will see Vestas add the title of biggest offshore wind manufacturer to its previous market-leading position in onshore wind.

“With today’s approval of the transaction we are excited to move one step closer towards welcoming offshore back into the Vestas family,” said Vestas CEO Henrik Andersen, referring to the turbine maker’s early development of turbines of up 7MW, including the design that has grown into MHI Vestas’ 10MW V174.

“I’m personally very encouraged by the many dialogues I’ve had with both Vestas and MHI Vestas colleagues as well as our customers and partners since we announced the strengthened partnership with MHI. It’s clear that everyone is excited about our bold step together towards accelerating the energy transition.”

Vestas said since the agreement with MHI was announced in October “planning of integration of [MHI Vestas] into the Vestas group had 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”.

The OEM added it expected final closing of the transaction is expected to take place before year end, with Vestas and MHI Vestas continue “to execute as two independent companies” until this time.

MHI Vestas since its foundation in 2014 has carved out a respectable global market share, but never succeeded in matching the success of larger rival Siemens Gamesa, which dominates the world-wide market for offshore wind turbines.

On a stand-alone basis, MVOW is expected to report a consolidated revenue for 2020 of roughly €1.4bn, with an earnings before interest and taxes margin (EBIT margin) of around 4%, Vestas revealed today.

The company is also lagging behind in the race to develop bigger offshore wind turbines, with its V164/V174 machine that rates up to 10MW currently still being the most powerful model on offer, while Siemens Gamesa already has announced an up to 15GW nameplate model, while GE is developing a 13MW machine

Wind

Vestas gets European seal of approval for buy-up of MHI stake in offshore wind venture