South Korea's Daewoo Shipbuilding snaps up DeWind for $49m

South Korea's Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering has acquired US wind turbine maker DeWind for $49.5m (£30m), in a deal designed to give the company access to the booming global market for renewable technologies.

Daewoo Shipbuilding, the world's second-largest shipmaker by sales, will gain control of DeWind's operating assets and liabilities under the deal, announced yesterday.

It added that it now plans to invest a further $70m to develop new wind power turbines and build additional US manufacturing plants for its new subsidiary.

The South Korean company has set a goal of being the world's third largest wind power equipment maker by 2020, with a target of achieving 15 per cent of global market share.

A 2008 agreement between DeWind and US wind farm developer Higher Perpetual Energy to build four wind farms in Texas will likely proceed as planned, as Daewoo Shipbuilding has indicated that it will invest in a 420-turbine project in the state.

DeWind, which has operations in the US and Germany, is currently a subsidiary of Californian electrical transmission systems maker Composite Technology Corp. It has supplied 710 wind turbines to the US, China and countries in Europe and South America.

The acquisition mirrors the recent purchase of Netherlands-based wind turbine maker Harakosan Europe by South Korean shipmaker STX Group for $19m.

The deals by Daewoo Shipbuilding and STX are part of their plans to diversify into the renewable energy market as they struggle to cope with reduced orders for vessels and increased competition from China.

Korea Exchange-listed Daewoo Shipbuilding is controlled by Korea Development Bank and Korea Asset Management Corp. The state-run institutions took over the shipmaker after the 1999 collapse of its former parent Daewoo Group, formerly one of the country’s biggest conglomerates.