FOSSIL-FUEL UTILITIES
Best Dax returns fired by old-school coal burners
RWE, Europe’s biggest coal plant operator and greenhouse-gas polluter, is the largest gainer with a 49% jump on Germany’s Dax index
Düsseldorf — Investors jumped at the chance to buy into Germany’s landmark shift into renewable energy in 2016. Now they are getting a lesson that fossil-fuel utilities still have plenty to give. RWE, Europe’s biggest coal plant operator and greenhouse-gas polluter, is the largest gainer on the nation’s Dax index after jumping 49% in 2017. The advance is almost six times that of its clean-energy subsidiary Innogy. Another company for which coal and gas are its most important fuels, Uniper, has climbed at more than double the pace of its former parent EON. A rebound in power prices from decade lows, climbing coal-plant profitability and the need for stable supplies as Germany exits nuclear power have focused investor attention on conventional generators. While solar and wind take a growing share of Germany’s power generation, coal still makes up 40% of its energy mix. "Old economy utilities RWE and Uniper were extremely undervalued," said Herbert Perus, head of equities at Raiffeisen...
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