Uniper swaps AG for SE

German energy supplier and trader Uniper has become a European stock company, with its entry into the commercial register at the Dusseldorf district court and the replacement of descriptor "Aktiengesellschaft" [stock company] with "Societas Europaea" to the company name.

Commenting on this most recent development, Uniper CEO Klaus Schäfer said April 15 that he was pleased that the “internationalism that characterises us as a company is now also expressed through the company's legal structure. Above all, this marks another milestone on the road to legal autonomy."

Under an agreement on employee participation, the 12-member Uniper SE supervisory board is subject to direct parity co-determination. Accordingly, six members will be put forward by shareholders, and the remaining six by employee representatives.

E.ON is to spin the company off this year, assuming a positive vote at the shareholders’ general meeting in June. Many of Uniper’s assets in the gas sector originally belonged to Ruhrgas, whose shareholders were gradually bought out around 2002 by what is now E.ON, itself the result of the merger in 2000 of German power firms Veba and Viag.

William Powell