City of Innsbruck

Repurchase of Tiwag shares with “energy bond”

(Bild: Birbaumer Christof)

The partial sale of IKB to Tiwag was described by BM Georg Willi as a mistake. Finance Committee Chairman Stoll presents a solution. And he emphasized that the green mayor lacked creativity.

Innsbrucker Kommunalbetriebe and Tiwag have been linked since the City of Innsbruck sold its shares to the regional energy supplier in the 1990s. The city received the equivalent of 250 million euros at the time, but remained the majority owner with 50 percent and one share. 80,000 IKB customers have since been supplied with electricity by Tiwag - with all the advantages and disadvantages.

In the end, the latter outweighed the former. While 220,000 Tiwag customers have been compensated for excessively high electricity prices, IKB customers still have to wait for their "relief package".

Financing via an energy bond would be a smart solution. IKB could concentrate on its own business.

Finanzausschuss-Obmann GR Markus Stoll

"Willi lacks creativity"
These circumstances and the unstable relationship with AK Tirol as a result of the electricity ruling fueled the desire in Innsbruck to "buy out" Tiwag. BM Willi put the sum required for this at 450 million euros. "Unfinanceable", he says. "Willi lacks creativity when it comes to financing issues," says Finance Committee Chairman Markus Stoll (FI). "One option would be to issue an energy bond." Stoll is convinced that the necessary sum could easily be raised from private and institutional investors. They would receive fixed interest for their investment.

The model would offer the city a number of advantages in future: All dividends would remain 100 percent with the city, strategic decisions could be made alone and, above all, sovereignty over the electricity price would be regained. And presumably three expensive IKB board members would also be history ...