EWE's CEO Dr. Werner Brinker: "One more step towards the full-fledged internationalization of our Group"
Oldenburg, Germany, April 11, 2007. The power group EWE headquartered in Oldenburg, Germany is acquiring a 39.9 percent stake in the Turkish natural gas supplier Bursagaz A.S. thus expanding its international activities. EWE acquired the shares from the Turkish power company Çalik Energy that belongs to the Çalik Group and was previously the sole shareholder of Bursagaz beside the municipality of Bursa (10 % stakeholder). This makes the Oldenburg-based power group the first German power company to participate in a Turkish natural gas supplier. The contractual parties agreed to keep the sales amount confiden-tial.
EWE’s chairman of the Board of Management Dr. Werner Brinker, was quoted as saying "EWE has chosen to participate in Bursagaz because it is a high-performance natural gas supplier that has established itself on the Turkish en-ergy market. Our investment is one more step towards the full-fledged interna-tionalization of our Group". The company could not grow much more in the energy business in Germany, and that was the reason why EWE wanted to in-creasingly invest abroad. Heiko Harms, who is responsible for networks and IT on the EWE management board as well as the Turkey project noted that "the Turkish economy is developing at a fast pace and energy needs are growing along with them. Our thinking is that the demand for energy in Turkey will be surging in coming years and we want to be on hand to take advantage of this sales potential."
Brinker thinks important energy transit countries like the Ukraine or Turkey will figure prominently in Europe's energy supply. The European Council shares that assessment as stated at its spring summit 2007 as well as the International As-pects Task Force on the German national energy summit last fall.
The Turkish energy market is undergoing a process of liberalization at present and has not been divided up among the European power groups yet. That is why Brinker thinks "that it's the ideal time for strategic investors like EWE to posi-tion themselves on the Turkish market and sustainably profit from these invest-ments." In almost five decades, EWE has gathered extensive knowledge in building and operating natural gas networks and it wants to apply it now in Tur-key. Bursagaz is working at establishing itself as a source of energy in north-west Turkey.
EWE and the Çalik holding company will underscore their part-nership at the Hanover Fair in Hanover, Germany where Turkey is the partner country.
Bursagaz is a regional power company in north-west Turkey with more than 530,000 contracts for supplying natural gas in the Bursa region. In 2005, Bursa-gaz earned a turnover of 187.8 million YTL (around 102 million euros) with a profit of 15.8 million YTL (around 8.6 million euros) for the year.
The Bursa region is among Turkey's major economic centers where the city of Bursa is the fourth-largest city in Turkey at 1.2 million inhabitants.
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