The state-owned Eesti Energia is the majority shareholder of Enefit Green, which was part-listed publicly in 2021.

On Thursday, Eesti Energia announced its intention to make a voluntary takeover offer to Enefit Green's minority shareholders at a price more than 40 percent above market value, in order to bring Enefit Green 100 percent back under Eesti Energia ownership.

Durejko told "Aktuaalne kaamera" that the high buyback price was based on three factors.

These were: "Market prices of similar takeover offers in comparable situations. Valuations by analysis firms regarding future share price. And certainly also the investor perspective — what price might they exit at," Durejko enumerated.
The CEO stressed the goal is also not to use Estonian taxpayer funds to cover the risks of either foreign or domestic private investors.

"Certainly not. Looking at the share price, we can't draw conclusions based on just yesterday's market price. We're considering the three-month average closing price, which gives a much higher valuation. This is the reason — we can't base this on yesterday's very low closing price," he added.

Durejko did not call the 2021 decision to list a minority stake of Enefit Green a mistake as such, though conceded that not everything had gone smoothly.

"I would say that if everything had been perfect, we wouldn't have been doing this. But through this process and involving small investors, we've built up the largest wind energy portfolio company in the Baltics, so that is of huge value. But if the business model doesn't work, then we need to fix it — and we've started that work," he summarized.

Further justification for the voluntary share buyback derives from the need to boost Eesti Energia's investment capacity and competitiveness, he concluded.

"Eesti Energia is most profitable for Estonia when we have a unified and strong company. We need to invest more in renewable energy, and our primary goal is to restore Eesti Energia's investment capacity. At present, we've taken on a lot of debt and invested heavily, but profitability is a challenge — and we need to improve that. With a unified portfolio of controllable and renewable energy capacities, and storage, we're more competitive for client portfolios. This is what we are doing — and it's also what our biggest competitors, Ignitis and Elektrum in Latvia, are doing," he said.

Eesti Energia is an international energy company operating in the Baltic States and Poland, specializing in energy production, sales, and renewable energy solutions, with its subsidiary Enefit Green being the largest wind energy producer in the Baltics.

A proposed separation of another part of the Eesti Energia group, grid operator Elektrilevi, was the subject of political disputes in 2022-2023 and during the tenure of Durejko's predecessor as CEO, Hando Sutter. Ultimately, this split did not go through.

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