– The sale of a green electricity subsidiary should bring Baywa 1.7 billion euros. The hope was over-optimistic.
The heavily indebted Munich agricultural trading and conglomerate Baywa cannot stick to its restructuring plan. The reason is the difficult situation of the green electricity subsidiary Baywa re, which will not generate the expected results in the coming years and therefore cannot be sold as expensively as hoped.
That is why the Baywa parent company is now in talks with major shareholders and banks about changing the restructuring plan. The group should actually be back on solid financial footing by the end of 2028.
Selling the re will bring in far less money than hoped
The largest German agricultural trader ran into financial difficulties in 2024 after failed international expansion because the company could no longer pay the interest on its billions in debt. The recovery concept essentially envisages selling the subsidiaries that were bought or built up on credit in the 2010s and thus reducing the mountain of debt by four billion euros.
The Baywa is of great importance for agriculture in southern and eastern Germany. On the one hand, the company buys crops and, on the other hand, supplies farmers with agricultural machinery, seeds and fertilizer.
The sale of Baywa re was expected to bring in 1.7 billion euros. The joint venture with a Swiss investor plans and develops solar and wind farms, but the re’s management has drastically reduced its earnings targets. According to re’s own statement, the ongoing restructuring of the daughter – separately from the mother – will probably take two years longer than planned; the new target date is 2030.
The board of the parent Baywa AG now assumes that the sale of re will bring in “significantly” less than 1.7 billion euros. “This requires an adjustment to Baywa AG’s restructuring concept,” said the mandatory notification to the stock exchange. What is now unknown is not only how high the selling price of the re could be, but also the targeted timing.
Board expresses optimism
In the short term, the Baywa leadership wants to conclude a standstill agreement with major shareholders and lending banks, which should give the group a breathing space until autumn 2026. It was not clear from the ad hoc announcement what the changed restructuring plan might look like. “The board assumes that an agreement can be reached,” the statement said briefly. However, the publication of the consolidated financial statements for 2025 may be delayed until the fourth quarter.
