Short summary of the story so far:
1) Finnish energy company Fortum buys 47% majority in Uniper in 2017, eventually having 73% in 2020
2) Uniper is now Fortum's German subsidiary and Germany's largest gas importer. Uniper is in financial difficulties due to the increase in the price of gas in Europe during the past year. Uniper has to buy gas from the spot market at a high price and sell it on to its customers at the old, cheaper contract prices and makes a loss of one hundred million euros per day.
3) Finnish state owns 50,8% of Fortum, in other words, finnish tax payers own
4) In July 2022 Fortum and Germany made a deal of 15 billions to save Uniper that granted Germany 30% ownership of Uniper and was supposed to make sure no nationalization of the company would happen
5) Unipers stock price has crashed and now Germany will take them by force for cheap
Additional summary:
Earlier in the year, Fortum helped Uniper with an €8 billion credit line. Political opposition in Finland sees Germany now betraying the July deal and accuses the Finnish government of being too lenient in the first place.
According to the main opposition party chair, the National Coalition (NCP) Kai Mykkänen, Germany is intentionally lowering Uniper’s value, and, once it hits rock bottom, the company will be nationalised, and Finnish taxpayers have de facto paid German gas bills.
