German open-ended fund manager Commerz Real is acquiring a majority interest in RWE’s transmission systems operator Amprion for EUR 700 mln together with a group of institutional investors. To this end, an investment fund company of Commerz Real will acquire a 74.9% stake in the company.

German open-ended fund manager Commerz Real is acquiring a majority interest in RWE’s transmission systems operator Amprion for EUR 700 mln together with a group of institutional investors. To this end, an investment fund company of Commerz Real will acquire a 74.9% stake in the company.

The transaction, which is subject to the approval of RWE's Supervisory Board and the responsable anti-trust authorities, is expected to be completed in the third qarter of 2011. The purchase price is based on an overall enterprise value of EUR 1.3 bn. Members of the investor consortium include companies owned by Munich Re and Ergo Group, Swiss Life represented by Swiss Life Deutschland, Talanx and doctors’ pension funds from Westphalia-Lippe and Brandenburg.

Amprion operates Germany’s longest extra-high voltage network (220 kV and 380 kV) with a circuit length of around 11,000 kilometres and some 160 switching and substations between Lower Saxony and the border to Switzerland and Austria. It supplies an area of more than 73,000 km2 and a population of more than 27 million people.

'With this infrastructure fund, we are developing a new asset class for our institutional investors. The transaction is without parallel in Germany in this form and magnitude,' said Michael Bücker, CEO of Commerz Real AG. 'It is the first time that institutional investors will have the option to use this kind of fund construction to access the stable cash flow from infrastructure networks. The interest in such solutions is growing: A survey that we carried out together with Steinbeis University in Berlin conducted at the beginning of this year tells us that infrastructure assets as an investment-grade asset class are gaining increasing significance for institutional investors.'

Commerz Real was advised in this transaction by Clifford Chance, Ernst & Young, Bet and Marsh.

Commerz Real is a fully-owned subsidiary of Commerz Bank AG with more than 40 years of market experience and around EUR 40 bn in assets under management.