STUTTGART, GERMANY: Bosch has signed agreements with the financial investor Ventizz to acquire 50.45 percent of the shares in ersol Solar Energy AG, Erfurt, Germany. The purchase price for these shares amounts to 546.4 million euros, equivalent to a price of 101.00 euros per share. The acquisition of the shareholding is subject to approval by the anti-trust authorities.

As a result of these agreements, Bosch intends to make a public takeover offer to all other ersol shareholders, in which it will also offer 101.00 euros per share in cash. The offer price will represent a premium of 68 percent based on the weighted average XETRA and floor-trading share price of the past three months. Apart from Ventizz, further ersol shareholders, whose combined shareholding comes to a total of 3.3 percent, have already signed irrevocable undertakings to accept the offer.

ersol Solar Energy AG develops, manufactures, and sells wafer-based silicon solar cells, and is moving into the manufacture of thin-film modules. The photovoltaics company generated global sales of 160 million euros in 2007. For 2008, ersol expects sales of more than 300 million euros. The company currently employs some 1,000 associates at three locations.

With this acquisition, Bosch hopes to extend its business in the area of renewable energies. "As a leading technology and services company offering beneficial products and services, Bosch significantly contributes to protecting the environment and conserving resources. Together with ersol, which is a successful company in the field of photovoltaics, we want to further expand our business in this area. In this enterprise, we will count very much on the know-how and experience of ersol's management and associates," said Franz Fehrenbach, chairman of the Bosch board of management.

Bosch is already active in the market with many systems for utilizing renewable energies. With its existing activities in this area, it plans to generate sales of some 750 million euros in 2008. Bosch Rexroth, for example, supplies gear and drive technology for wind turbines, develops efficient drive concepts for the still young sector of marine energy generation, and supplies hydraulic adjusting systems for solar thermal power stations.

In addition, Bosch Thermotechnology has become the market leader in the rapidly growing market for electric heat pumps, and is also a leading manufacturer of solar collectors for hot-water generation. In June 2007, Bosch entered into an alliance with the German companies BASF SE (Ludwigshafen) and Heliatek GmbH (Dresden) in the promising area of organic photovoltaics. The objective of this alliance is to produce solar cells significantly more cost effectively and at the same time to increase the number of areas where they can be used.