Berlin to nationalizes , acquire 99% of Uniper. It still needs to be approved by EU

The German government will spend €8 billion to acquire 99% of the shares of ailing gas giant Uniper after agreeing with the Finnish government, whose state-company Fortum is a major shareholder.

The nationalisation of Uniper, once created as a bad bank to concentrate fossil assets of E.ON, follows repeated attempts by the German government to keep it going.

Bleeding tens to hundreds of millions of euros per day as contracted gas flows from Russia stopped coming, Berlin offered credit lines and created a gas levy to mutualise the costs of keeping business running. Now, the government is undertaking the country’s largest ever nationalisation.