The company DEA AG, which is part of the letterOne of Mikhail Friedman and partners, has completed the merger with Wintershall - the “daughter” of the German BASF concern. This is stated in the message of the combined company Wintershall Dea. The final integration of assets is expected to be completed during the year. At this time, Wintershall Dea will be managed from two headquarters - in German Kassel and Hamburg.

LetterOne (shareholders - Mikhail Fridman, German Khan and Alexey Kuz'michev) received 33% of Wintershall Dea as a result of the merger, BASF owns 67%. In exchange for oil and gas assets, the German concern will also receive preferred shares, which it can convert to ordinary for three years and increase its stake in Wintershall Dea to 72.7%.

The combined company is the largest oil and gas player in Europe. Wintershall Dea also has assets in Russia, Latin America and Africa. The company's proven reserves are 2.4 billion barrels of oil equivalent, which is enough for 11 years. “Our roots are in Germany, our home is Europe, our activity is global,” the message says Mario Meren, Chairman of the Board of Directors and Head of Wintershall Dea. In Germany, the company operates a network of gas pipelines with a length of about 2,400 km, it also owns a 15.5% stake in Nord Stream AG, the operator of the gas pipeline under the Baltic Sea “Nord Stream”.

Last year, Wintershall and DEA cumulative sales totaled € 5.7 billion, with a net profit of € 1.1 billion. Both companies produced 215 million barrels of oil equivalent. Now the daily production is 590,000 barrels, by 2023 it is planned to increase it to 590,000 barrels, which will correspond to an annual increase in production of 6-8%. Income from the merger of the two companies BASF and LetterOne estimated € 200 million.

DEA AG was established in 1899. In 2015, L1 Energy (the LetterOne oil and gas division) bought it from German RWE for 5.1 billion — about a third of the $ 14 billion it received from Mikhail Friedman and his partners from the sale of Rosneft’s TNK-BP stake. At the same time, Wintershell also claimed for the purchase of DEA, but offered less money than L1 Energy. Two years later, BASF and LetterOne signed an agreement of intent to merge oil and gas assets. In 2018, German Khan estimated the business of the combined company at € 20 billion. Initially, the Russian company’s shareholders spoke very cautiously about the possible IPO of the combined company. But the Wintershall Dea report says that, given a favorable market environment, it can go public on the stock exchange in the second half of 2020.