FRANKFURT - German energy giant EON's non-renewables spinoff Uniper made its debut on the Frankfurt stock exchange Monday, with traders putting its worth at around four billion euros, far below the value estimated by the parent company.
The division's first day of trading was in line with analyst expectations, although EON itself has valued Uniper's assets at around 12 billion euros
Uniper began trading with an opening price of 10.02 euros that climbed to 10.58 by 1430 GMT, putting the company's market value at just under 3.9 billion euros ($4.4 billion).
The division's first day of trading was in line with analyst expectations, although EON itself has valued Uniper's assets at around 12 billion euros.
"We are not foreseeing any huge jump in Uniper stock and therefore expect a multi-billion euro depreciation of EON's remaining 46.65-percent stake in Uniper," DZ Bank said in a research note.
EON created Uniper to take over its fossil fuel operations so it could focus on renewable energy and nuclear power as part of Germany's transition to cleaner forms of electricity generation.
The spin-off also comes at a time when the gas and coal industry is suffering heavily from low wholesale electricity prices and competition from government-subsidised renewables.
First-half results published by Uniper last month as if it had already been operating as a separate entity showed it would have booked a loss of 3.9 billion euros, in part due to big writedowns on the value of its fossil-fuel plants.