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| Vapor escapes from chimneys of a gas fired power station, operated by Dong Energy A/S, beyond harbor boats in Copenhagen, Denmark. Photographer: Freya Ingrid Morales/Bloomberg |
When Goldman Sachs bought part of Denmark’s biggest energy utility three years ago, it triggered a political crisis that split the ruling coalition. Now, as the Wall Street bank sells roughly half that stake, some members of the Danish parliament are again crying foul.
Goldman, through a Luxembourg-based vehicle, sold the equivalent of just over 6 percent of Dong Energy A/S for 6.5 billion kroner ($940 million) on Friday. Back in 2014, Goldman paid 8 billion kroner for 18 percent. A stake that size would now fetch about 18.5 billion kroner. (Goldman still owns 7 percent of Dong.)
In an angry statement, Pelle Dragsted, a spokesman for the opposition Left-Green Alliance, described the whole transaction as “hopeless” and the initial sale to Goldman as “scandalous.” Meanwhile, an investigation into Goldman’s investment in Dong by Denmark’s National Audit Office is still under way. The purpose of that probe is to find out whether Dong was sold at too low a price in 2014. The chairman of the parliament’s Public Accounts Committee has described the process as a political gesture that’s unlikely to reveal wrongdoing......[READ MORE]
