Fortum Won't Increase Offer for Uniper

Finland's Fortum Oyj (FORTUM.HE) said Tuesday it wouldn't raise its EUR22 ($25.53) per share offer for Uniper SE (UN01.XE).

Fortum published its bid Tuesday after Germany's financial watchdog BaFin approved the deal. The offer values the energy company at EUR8.05 billion. The acceptance period for the offer ends Jan. 16, 2018.

"We have no plans whatsoever, nor do we see any reasons, to raise the offer price," said Pekka Lundmark, Fortum's chief executive in a statement, adding that Fortum is focused on acquiring the 46.65% stake that E.ON SE (EOAN.XE) has in Uniper.

German regulation requires Fortum to make an offer to all shareholders of Uniper.

At 1357 GMT Uniper shares trade at EUR23.84, down 0.27%.

E.ON agreed to sell its stake to Fortum earlier this year, and can decide to tender its Uniper stake in early 2018. The agreement includes a break-up fee of up to EUR1.5 billion that E.ON would have to pay if it decided not to tender the shares, making it unlikely the company would accept other bids.

Uniper Chief Financial Officer Christopher Delbrueck said in a conference call Tuesday that there were no other bidders at the moment and added that Uniper's management would evaluate Fortum's offer.

But he repeated that Uniper considered the bid hostile. Uniper has advised shareholders not to accept the offer and said it wanted to remain independent.

Write to Max Bernhard at Max.Bernhard@dowjones.com; @mxbernhard

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

November 07, 2017 09:15 ET (14:15 GMT)