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Ørsted has replaced chief executive Mads Nipper with immediate effect, as the world’s largest offshore wind developer battles to recover from a botched expansion into the US and revive a sinking share price.
The Danish company said Nipper, who has held the top job since 2021, would be replaced on February 1 by Rasmus Errboe, deputy chief executive and chief commercial officer.
Nipper’s departure comes after Ørsted this month announced fresh writedowns on its US business, blaming the impact of high interest rates and an uncertain outlook for the market.
“The impacts on our business of the increasingly challenging situation in the offshore wind industry, ranging from supply chain bottlenecks, interest rate increases, to a changing regulatory landscape, mean that our focus has shifted,” Ørsted said on Friday.
Donald Trump’s return to the White House has deepened Ørsted’s challenges in the US, where high interest rates and supply chain disruptions had already threatened the success of its aggressive expansion.
Trump, who has pledged to reverse much of the Biden administration’s support for the renewables sector, has suspended new offshore wind leases in the US.
Formerly known as Danish Oil and Natural Gas, Ørsted was hailed as an example of how a fossil fuel producer could successfully shift into green energy.
But a combination of high interest rates and growing investor doubts over how rapidly the world will transition away from fossil fuels has hobbled its progress. Ørsted’s shares have slumped 80 per cent since Nipper took over at the height of a boom in ESG stocks.
Its push into America’s nascent offshore wind market has been at the heart of its difficulties, in part because of the country’s undeveloped supply chain and onerous rules around installation vessels.
The company announced multibillion-dollar impairments in November 2023 after walking away from two major US projects.
The impairments triggered the exit of its then finance chief and chief operating officer, but Nipper stayed on with the backing of the board, saying last year that he took “full accountability” for its problems but would “fight with everything I’ve got” to put the company back on course.
He made the comments as he announced plans in February 2024 to cut 800 jobs, retreat from some offshore wind markets and suspend the company’s dividend, in an attempt to slim down and refocus the business.
However, this month it announced fresh writedowns on its US business totalling DKr12.1bn ($1.7bn) and raising further questions about management credibility.
Ørsted now has almost 16 gigawatts of wind and solar capacity installed around the world, the majority of which is offshore wind. During the first nine months of last year, it made profits of DKr6.1bn.
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