Pardon Veolia’s French

Veolia has accused Ardian founder and president Dominique Senequier of being “particularly dishonest” when presenting Veolia “as a player without any roots and with little concern for France’s industrial sovereignty”. The French water and waste management company made those and other comments in a statement last Thursday, following Senequier’s testimony before the French Senate’s monitoring committee regarding Veolia’s unsolicited takeover bid for French rival Suez, in which it already owns 29.99 percent. After establishing its own French credentials, Veolia attacked Ardian’s, pointing to the fact that many of the investors in its funds are foreign. It also took aim at the French fund manager for partnering with New York-based Global Infrastructure Partners – which it accused of not wishing to answer French senators’ questions – to launch an €11.3 billion bid for Suez last month, a move Suez welcomed as “an amicable solution to the situation created by Veolia’s approach”.

However, during the hearing on 17 February, Senequier said Ardian would not be submitting a counteroffer until or unless Veolia and Suez reached an amicable agreement. Suez has said it favours hiring a mediator to resolve the situation, which began with Veolia’s unsolicited bid last August and has since drawn in another French firm, infrastructure fund manager Meridiam.

It remains to be seen then whether this will end amicably or in a messy divorce.

Nordic wind party over for tech giants?

Tech giants such as Facebook, Amazon and Google have driven the growth of the corporate power purchase agreement market across the world for several years. That’s particularly true in the Nordics, where such firms have used the abundance of wind resources to power up data centres.

However, one renewable energy advisor working in the Nordics has told The Pipeline that asset owners may have to search elsewhere for future offtake agreements. The sentiment among several of the players is that the tech giants have “had their fill” in the region and are pausing amid last year’s power price slumps.

It may not just be the Nordics. In 2019, Google, Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft were the four largest buyers of corporate PPAs globally, according to BloombergNEF. In the latest figures for 2020 released last month, Amazon led the way, although it was followed by a new set of buyers including Total, TSMC and Verizon.

A thumbs-down it is, then.

Renewables valuations Total-ly ‘crazy’

Perhaps Total is finding more value in the PPA market than in generation itself. Chief executive Patrick Pouyanné told the Financial Times last week (paywall) of the French group’s ambitions to be seen not “as an oil and gas company, but as an energy company”, yet this is proving easier said than done.

Pouyanné told of renewables valuations, about 25 times EBITDA, that are “just crazy today” and declared: “I will not buy, but I think I would not be surprised to see one of my European peers spending money.”

He added that bankers have told him that if Total doesn’t buy, BP probably will. The fellow oil major’s appetite was demonstrated this month in the UK Crown Estate’s offshore wind development auction. Alongside Germany’s EnBW, BP paid £154,000 ($214,851; €177,862) per MW per year for the development rights.

Fellow bidders, including Total, were so incredulous, The Times reported (paywall), that the Crown Estate issued a clarification that the published price was indeed correct and not a typo.

“It’s not stick and carrot. It’s carrot, double-carrot and triple-carrot”