LetterOne to buy RWE Dea for $7.1B

Germany’s RWE Aktiengesellschaft and LetterOne Group have agreed terms for the sale of RWE Dea AG for approximately 5.1 billion Euro (USD 7.1 billion)

RWE Dea AG is an international oil & gas exploration and production company with headquarters in Hamburg, Germany. RWE Dea has concessions, facilities and offices in 14 countries of the world. These include production facilities and concessions in Germany, the UK, Norway, Denmark and Egypt. The company has exploration permits in Ireland, Mauritania, Poland, Suriname, Trinidad & Tobago and Turkmenistan. It also operates large underground gas-storage facilities in Germany.

The transaction will be subject to the approval of the Supervisory Board of RWE Aktiengesellschaft and of authorities in several countries. The enterprise value includes ca. 0.6 billion Euro in assumed liabilities.

The buyer, LetterOne, is a privately owned Luxembourg-based global investment vehicle focused on utilizing its financial resources, management and investment expertise to make value-driven investments in the Energy and Telecoms sectors through its two main business units L1 Energy and LetterOne Telecom. LetterOne’s liquidity is managed by LetterOne Treasury Services.

Mikhail Fridman

As at 31 December 2013 LetterOne’s assets under management total $29bn (comprising $13,5bn in telecoms assets and circa $15,6bn in credit and equity securities, loan deposits and funds) and originate from the investment and operational track record of its founding shareholders including the sale of TNK-BP, a major Russian integrated oil and gas company.

LetterOne is owned by Russian billionaire  Mikhail Fridman and his partners German Khan and Alexei Kuzmichev, who co-own Alfa Group, the biggest financial and industrial investment group in Russia.

According to Forbes Fridman’s net value is estimated at $17.6 Billion. Also, Bloomberg reports that Fridman is Russia’s fourth richest man.