Due to the explosion in electricity and gas prices, the energy company Uniper has to expand the financing framework to secure its business by up to almost 12 billion euros.

This also includes an agreement with the state-owned KfW bank, announced the subsidiary of the Finnish Fortum Group on Tuesday evening. 

On January 4, Uniper agreed a credit facility of up to two billion euros with KfW, the term of which ends on April 30, 2022.

The credit facility has not yet been drawn.

It is a security measure in the event of extreme market developments in the future.

In addition, a revolving credit line from the group's core banks with the full volume of 1.8 billion euros had been called, the group listed in the M-Dax had announced.

The Uniper shares fell on Wednesday morning by 1.69 percent to 41.29 euros.

According to the information, a contract has been concluded with the parent company Fortum, which entitles the Düsseldorf company to take out loans of up to 8 billion euros.

Part of it has already been used - but Uniper did not provide an exact number.

Fortum currently holds more than three quarters of the shares in the Düsseldorf company, an increase is conceivable.

The Finns had only undertaken to waive a profit transfer and domination agreement, including forcing out small investors, until the end of 2021.

Fortum's shares fell by around two percent on the Finnish stock exchange at the start of trading.

"Unprecedented price increases"

"The reason for the additional financial security measures are the unprecedented price increases of several hundred percent within a few months in a highly volatile market environment," emphasized Tiina Tuomela, Chief Financial Officer. Uniper is economically a very healthy company. The group recently raised its earnings forecast for 2021. Uniper's CFO Tiina Tuomela had already pointed out strong competition in the demand for gas when the figures for the first nine months were presented at the beginning of November.

With the measures that have now been announced, Uniper aims to be more resistant to extreme future market developments.

So rising raw material prices require higher security services from the group.

However, Uniper emphasizes that in the course of higher raw material prices, the value of the underlying assets in the gas and electricity portfolio will also rise.

Therefore, rising prices would not have a negative impact on earnings prospects.