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Wind group Bard strengthens top team as it hunts for a buyer
German offshore wind group Bard has reinforced its management team by naming as chief technology officer the former REpower board member Olaf Struck, who joins as the company races to find a buyer.
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Struck will assume his duties from 1 October, joining chief executive Bernd Ranneberg and chief financial officer Manuel Althoff at the top of Emden-based Bard Holding.
Bard has hired US investment bank JPMorgan to lead its efforts to find a buyer by spring 2012. The company is known to be in discussions with players from Asia and the US, including General Electric (GE).
Bard’s management team has been plagued by gaps since October 2010, when chief executive Heiko Ross unexpectedly left the company.
Ross was hired to lead Bard in March 2009 after the death of Natalia Bekker, the daughter of the company’s founder Arngolt Bekker.
Ross’s tenure was marked by a number of missed opportunities and a period of increasing strain within Bard, which has more than 1,000 employees.
Bard’s flagship project – the 400MW Bard Offshore 1 in the German North Sea – has already passed its initially scheduled completion date of mid-2011. Only 19 of the 80 turbines have been installed to date, and construction is now expected to drag on until at least late 2013.
Negotiations that would have seen Spanish turbine maker Gamesa buy a minority stake in Bard fell through in August 2010, and Ross resigned shortly after the deal collapsed.
In 2008 UniCredit-owned HypoVereinsbank put up about €1bn ($1.36bn) in debt finance for Bard Offshore 1. The bank is understood to have been forced to write-off several hundreds of millions of euros in its investment due to the ongoing construction delays.
Making matters worse, an agreement clinched in July 2010 to sell 70% of the equity in Bard Offshore 1 to SüdWestStrom, a group of municipal utilities, has become mired in quicksand – presumably as a result of the slippage in schedules.
Bard’s financial difficulties mean delays are also all but inevitable at Veja Mate, the second offshore project in its pipeline.
In January Ranneberg – a business reorganisation specialist – was brought in as chief executive to put the company on an even keel as it searches for a buyer.
A month earlier, Arngolt Bekker had transferred his 87% ownership in Bard Holding into a new entity with the explicit purpose of selling his stake and retiring.
Industry sources believe Germany’s recent aggressive push towards offshore wind has made mid-sized turbine makers like Bard and Nordex significantly more appealing takeover candidates for Chinese and Korean buyers.
The company’s state-of-the-art production facilities on the North Sea coast in Emden and Cuxhaven are viewed as one of its key assets, given the acceleration of Germany’s offshore programme.
Bard did not immediately respond to calls and e-mails requesting further comment.
Karl-Erik Stromsta, London
Published: Tuesday, September 13 2011