Category: Miscellaneous

E.ON decides to close reactors

At an extraordinary shareholders’ meeting on Wednesday, E.ON made a final decision to close two nuclear reactors at the Oskarshamn power plant.

One of the reactors has already been shut down and will not be re-started while the second reactor will close some time between 2017 and 2019. Oskarshamn’s third reactor, which is the newest, will be kept in operation until 2045.

Low electricity prices and the introduction of the nuclear capacity tax lie behind the decision to close the reactors.

And, at another extraordinary shareholders’ meeting to be held later today, E.ON and Vattenfall will discus the timeframe for the closure of two reactors at Ringhals. Vattenfall has said they should be closed by 2020, but E.ON has said it needs more time.

Following yesterday’s decision, Lars Hjälmered, the Moderates’ spokesman on energy policy, has slammed the government’s energy policy, suggesting it lacks long-term predictability.

Billions hidden within Volvo Group

A Dagens Industri study shows that the Volvo Group can raise close to SKr 60 billion by divesting a number of odd assets, shareholdings and properties. The holdings include a stake in Inner Mongolia Hauler Joint Stock worth SKr 2 billion, and in Germany’s Deutz worth SKr 1 billion.

Other holdings include Volvo Information Technology, which is Sweden’s largest IT consulting company with sales of SKr 9.7 billion, 20% of which is from external customers. There has been talk of divesting or outsourcing the business in the past year.

Volvo is also one of Sweden’s largest property companies; the buildings and land owned by the Group have a booked value of close to SKr 28 billion.

New CEO for Industrivärden

Helena Stjernholm, who has worked for private equity firm IK Investment Partners for 17 years, will succeed Anders Nyrén as chief executive of the Lundberg sphere’s investment company Industrivärden.

“She has a good track record, has done well and worked on issues relevant to Industrivärden. She simply has a suitable background,” said Fredrik Lundberg, chair of Industrivärden, who pointed out that Stjernholm was one of several candidates for the top job.

Those who have previously criticised the culture at Industrivärden lauded the appointment of Stjernholm, whose primary task will be to rebuild trust in the dented business empire and also manage the controversial system of cross-ownership within the sphere.

Swedish instruments on space journey

 

A team of scientists at the Swedish Institute of Space Physics are developing two instruments that will be used on ESA’s Jupiter mission, which will launch in 2022. One instrument will measure the different particles around Jupiter and its icy moon. The second instrument will measure radio waves, electric and magnetic fields as well as charged gases to see if there could be life under Jupiter’s icy moon.

LKAB unable to help

 

The group of Swedish industrialists that last week bought the Kaunisvaara processing plant from bankrupt miner Northland Resources had hoped to strike a deal with state-owned LKAB to buy iron ore below the market price . However, LKAB is not interested, saying it cannot afford to indulge the industrialists, merely to save jobs in northern Sweden.

“A state-owned company does not have the right to give any kind of support to a private company, and we cannot afford to either. We are ourselves working hard to save money in order to keep profitability at a reasonable level,” remarks LKAB chairman Sten Jakobsson.

According to Mats Leifland, the spokesman for the industrialists, who include BP chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg, the aim within the next 3-6 months is to find a solution with LKAB that is beneficial to both parties. If this does not happen, operations will be discontinued.

Growing interest in electric cars

New car registrations were up 11% in the first half of 2015, while new registrations of electric or plug-in hybrids rose by 56%, according to Bil Sweden, the association that represents manufacturers and importers of cars, trucks and buses.

Above all, it is car buyers in Stockholm, Gothenburg and Malmö who are showing a growing interest in cars with carbon emissions of less than 50g/km.

Nevertheless, electric and plug-in hybrids still represent a small part of the total market, accounting for just 2% of car sales in Sweden.