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Infineon to get €725 mln capital injection from US investor

The troubled German computer chip maker Infineon said Friday it would make a major capital increase with the backing of the US investment fund Apollo.

Infineon to get €725 mln capital injection from US investor
Photo: DPA

Infineon said it would issue new shares worth a total €725 million ($1 billion), and that current shareholders would be given a place at the head of the line to buy them.

The plan calls for the issuance of 337 million new shares at €2.15 per share, a statement said.

Apollo has pledged to buy shares not taken by the current shareholders up to a total of 326 million, which would represent a stake of 30 percent minus one share in the German company.

The move confirmed a press report earlier on Friday in the Financial Times Deutschland (FTD).

The operation would be one of the biggest in a German company in several months, the newspaper said, and represents a change for Apollo, which normally acts like a hedge fund that buys an ailing company to either restructure it, sell off valuable parts, or merge it with another firm at a profit.

Infineon has suffered from a collapse of the automobile electronics component sector and is already in the process of restructuring its activities.

In the first half of its 2008/2009 fiscal year, it posted a net loss of €662 million on sales of €1.6 billion, the FTD said.

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BUSINESS

France’s EDF hails €10billion profit, despite huge UK nuclear charge

French energy giant EDF has unveiled net profit of €10billion and cut its massive debt by increasing nuclear production after problems forced some plants offline.

France's EDF hails €10billion profit, despite huge UK nuclear charge

EDF hailed an “exceptional” year after its loss of €17.9billion in 2022.

Sales slipped 2.6 percent to €139.7billion , but the group managed to slice debt by €10billion euros to €54.4billion.

EDF said however that it had booked a €12.9 billion depreciation linked to difficulties at its Hinkley Point nuclear plant in Britain.

The charge includes €11.2 billion for Hinkley Point assets and €1.7billion at its British subsidiary, EDF Energy, the group explained.

EDF announced last month a fresh delay and additional costs for the giant project hit by repeated cost overruns.

“The year was marked by many events, in particular by the recovery of production and the company’s mobilisation around production recovery,” CEO Luc Remont told reporters.

EDF put its strong showing down to a strong operational performance, notably a significant increase in nuclear generation in France at a time of historically high prices.

That followed a drop in nuclear output in France in 2022. The group had to deal with stress corrosion problems at some reactors while also facing government orders to limit price rises.

The French reactors last year produced around 320.4 TWh, in the upper range of expectations.

Nuclear production had slid back in 2022 to 279 TWh, its lowest level in three decades, because of the corrosion problems and maintenance changes after
the Covid-19 pandemic.

Hinkley Point C is one of a small number of European Pressurised Reactors (EPRs) worldwide, an EDF-led design that has been plagued by cost overruns
running into billions of euros and years of construction delays.

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