Virya Energy increases stake in Eurowatt to 100%

25.02.2021

Halle, February 25th, 2021. Virya Energy, the energy holding of Colruyt Group and Korys, acquired the shares of the minority shareholders of Eurowatt, a European company predominantly active in French onshore wind energy.

Earlier this year, the minority shareholders expressed their intent to sell their participation and Virya Energy indicated its willingness to increase its shareholding to 100%, underpinning its support and belief in the further growth of Eurowatt. Korys entered in the capital of Eurowatt with a majority stake in 2014. In 2019, when Virya Energy was established, Korys contributed its participation in Eurowatt into Virya Energy. The fruitful cooperation with the founding shareholders and the management, as well as the dedication of the Eurowatt team, resulted in sustained growth with a doubling of the company’s energy production capacity since 2014. Virya Energy looks forward to working with Eurowatt’s management and team to further support the company’s contribution to the development of climate-friendly solutions in Europe.

About Eurowatt

Eurowatt is a European company created in 1994 and predominantly active in French onshore wind energy. As an independent power producer, it is involved in the development, financing, construction and operation of renewable energy assets. In addition to its onshore wind activities in France, Eurowatt has onshore wind assets in Poland and Portugal and mini-hydropower plants in Portugal and Spain. Eurowatt operates a total installed capacity of more than 300MW and has more than 600MW under construction or at different stages of development.

About Virya Energy

Virya Energy was founded in 2019 by Colruyt Group and Korys to combine their respective renewable energy holdings. Virya Energy currently holds participations in Parkwind, Eurowatt and Eoly Energy.

Virya Energy focuses on the development, financing, construction and operation of renewable energy assets and has the ambition to pursue its international growth. Through the combination of its participations, Virya Energy aims to foster technological and knowledge exchange between its teams and to create economies of scale to remain an important player in the rapidly evolving renewable energy industry.

Parkwind is a Belgium based company active in offshore wind energy. Eurowatt is predominantly active in French onshore wind energy but also present in the Polish, Spanish and Portuguese renewable energy spaces. Eoly Energy operates onshore wind energy assets in Belgium.

About Korys - www.korys.be

Korys is the investment company of the Colruyt family. Today, it has more than EUR 4.5 billion of assets under management. Besides holding a significant participation in the Colruyt Group, a leading retail company in Belgium and France, it actively manages participations in privately held companies and in private equity funds. Korys has also set up proprietary funds to manage its portfolio of listed investments. Across its activities, Korys’ investment decisions are taken with a long-term perspective and on basis of strict economic (Profit), social (People) and ecological (Planet) criteria. Korys aims to create sustainable value in three major ecosystems: Life Sciences, Energy Transition and Conscious Consumer. To do this, Korys can count on a motivated team of 30 professionals based in Belgium and Luxembourg.

About Colruyt Group

Colruyt Group operates in the food and non-food distribution sector in Belgium, France and Luxembourg with approximately 570 own stores and 580 affiliated stores. In Belgium, this includes Colruyt, OKay, Bio-Planet, Cru, Dreamland, Dreambaby, Fiets! and the affiliated stores Spar and Spar Compact. In France, in addition to Colruyt stores, there are also affiliated Coccinelle, Coccimarket and Panier Sympa stores. The group is also actively involved in the foodservice business (supply of food products to hospitals, company canteens and catering businesses) in Belgium (Solucious). The other activities comprise the sale of fuel in Belgium (DATS 24), printing and document management solutions (Symeta) and the production of green energy (Eoly). The group employs over 29.900 employees and recorded a EUR 9,4 billion revenue in 2018/19.  Colruyt is listed on Euronext Brussels (COLR) under ISIN code BE0974256852.

Press contact - Virya Energy