The German energy group Uniper reported an adjusted EBIT of €1.1bn in 2017, primarily thanks to the performance of its power generation businesses in Europe and Russia. The company's net income significantly improved and posted a net loss of €538m, much better than the €3.2bn loss in 2016. This is mostly attributable to the disposal of its gas stake in the Yuzhno-Russkoye gas field in Siberia. The company started to implement its debt-reduction programme in 2017 and its net debt of €2.4bn (at year-end 2017) was 40% lower than in 2016 (€4.2bn).
In 2017, Uniper's attributable power generation capacity declined by 4.3% to 35,318 MW, including 29,273 MW of thermal capacity (-4% due to disposal of the Vilvoorde power plant in Belgium and decommissioning of the Maasvlakte 1 and 2 power plants in the Netherlands), 3,696 MW of hydropower (-0.7%) and 2,255 MW of nuclear power capacity. The group generated 121 TWh in 2017 (-13% on 2016) but raised its power purchases by 9.3% to 595 TWh. Uniper's power sales grew by 5% to 726 TWh (of which 649 TWh sold on wholesale markets and 77 TWh sold to business customers and resellers), while its gas sales rose by nearly 13% to 1,945 TWh in 2017 (1,729 TWh on the wholesale market and 216 TWh to business customers and resellers).
In February 2018, the Finnish state-held power group Fortum became the majority shareholder of Uniper with a 47.12% stake. The transaction is still subject to regulatory and competition approvals and is expected to be finalized by mid-2018. Fortum could later buy additional shares on the open market and reach the 50% threshold at some point in the future.