German holding RWE took over the majority of Fidelis Energy’s customer portfolio, which held a market share of nearly 1% on the electricity supply segment, Cătălin Vişan, director of Fidelis Energy, told energynomics.ro. Following the turmoil this winter, a few small suppliers went into insolvency or bankruptcy and customers were picked up by last-instance vendors (FUIs).
Prices higher in the FUI market have led some customers to look for other suppliers. “Customers did not want to stay in the FUI system,” says Vishan.
The Competition Council announced yesterday that it authorized the transaction through which RWE Energie SRL takes over the customer portfolio of Fidelis Energy SRL. Most customers were taken over. Our activity in the gas segment was not significant,” Vişan said.
The Competition Authority analyzed this operation and found that it did not raise significant barriers to effective competition on the Romanian market or a substantial part of it, in particular by creating or strengthening a dominant position.
RWE Energie SRL is directly controlled by Budapesti Elektromos Muvek Nyrt and is part of the RWE Group, an active group on the European energy and gas supply markets. The RWE Group is a European leader in energy, being active in the production, transport and marketing of electricity and natural gas. The group is the largest producer of electricity in Germany and the second largest in the Netherlands, while on the natural gas market it is ranked first in the Netherlands and the third in Germany. At the same time, RWE Group is the fourth largest supplier in the UK for both electricity and natural gas.
In Romania, RWE has focused on serving non-domestic electricity customers, with the supply of natural gas being small.
Fidelis operated on the electricity market in Romania, as a supplier of electricity, as well as on the natural gas market.
