Danish wind turbine manufacturer Vestas has acquired ST3 Offshore in the sixth tendering round since the Polish offshore steel foundations manufacturer declared bankruptcy.”On March 20, in the court Sąd Rejonowy Szczecin-Centrum XII Wydział Gospodarczy w Szczecinie an auction for the purchase of ST3 Offshore was held. The highest price offered was PLN 170,500,002, so the trustee selected the offer submitted by RPGZ XXVIII sp. z o.o. – Vestas SPV. I congratulate the winners and thank the other bidder for their cooperation so far,” Natalia Leszczyńska, the Official Receiver of ST3 Offshore, said in a social media post.
The sixth tendering round would have most likely been the last one in which ST3 was offered as a complete entity.
If there were no bids, approval would have been requested from the relevant court to sell the company’s individual components to raise funds that would cover obligations to creditors.
The price of PLN 175.5 million (EUR 37.3 million) offered by Vestas and accepted is higher than what was the asking price of PLN 164.3 million (approximately EUR 34.4 million).
The Official Receiver of the company in insolvency put ST3 Offshore up for sale for the first time in the second half of February 2021, with an asking price of PLN 234,680,000 (around EUR 52 million at the time; around EUR 49 million now).
ST3 Offshore filed for bankruptcy at the beginning of 2020, after both its financial support and order book dried up. The Szczecin-Centrum District Court officially declared the company bankrupt on 31 March 2020.
The ST3 Offshore foundation fabrication facility is located in Szczecin, Poland, next to the border with Germany. According to the now-insolvent company’s presentation, this is an ideal location for offshore wind projects in the North Sea and the Baltic Sea as it is within a short transport distance to these markets.
Operational since July 2015, the site has been designed for serial production of jacket foundations and transition pieces for offshore wind turbines and substations, with a focus on foundations for water depths of up to 60 metres.
The company was founded in 2012 as Bilfinger Mars Offshore, a joint venture between Bilfinger and MARS Investment Fund. The same year, the partners started building the new serial production facility for on Gryfia Shipyard island in the Odra river in Szczecin.
In 2015, the same year the site was opened for business, Bilfinger Mars Offshore was awarded a contract for the Race Bank offshore wind farm with Ørsted (DONG Energy at the time), under which it delivered 91 foundations for the 580 MW project in the UK.
In 2016, ST3 Holding, a company owned by the Munich VTC group, bought the shares in the company from Bilfinger, acquiring a 20 per cent stake, with the remaining 80 per cent still held by Poland’s state-owned Mars investment fund.
Around the time it became ST3 Offshore, the foundation manufacturer won another contract with Ørsted, this time for the production and delivery of 20 suction bucket jacket foundations for the Borkum Riffgrund 2 offshore wind farm in the German North Sea.
In 2017, ST3 Offshore first filed for restructuring and bankruptcy and at the beginning of 2018, the manufacturer withdrew the bankruptcy petition after receiving positive feedback from the District Court on its application to open restructuring proceedings.
The company then also renegotiated the delivery deadline for its contract with Ørsted for the Borkum Riffgrund 2 offshore wind farm.
All of the 20 suction bucket jacket foundations were delivered by June 2018.
