AlphaValue/Baader Europe Lifts Fortum Price Target on Nuclear Power Deal with Google

04:16 AM EDT, 09/11/2026 (MT Newswires) -- AlphaValue/Baader Europe raised its price target for Fortum (FORTUM.HE) after the Finnish energy company signed a 22-year power purchase agreement with Alphabet's (ABEA.F) Google involving the Loviisa nuclear power plant in Finland. "With no price disclosed, we reverse-engineered it from management's guidance of a c.1.4 [percentage point] uplift to Group comparable [return on net assets] over time, once 50% of the plant is contracted by 2030 for 22 years. Applied to the H1 2026 comparable net asset average of EUR8,950m, lifting RONA from 11.0% [last 12 months] to 12.4% implies c.EUR136m of additional comparable operating profit (EUR974m to EUR1,110m)," according to a Thursday note. "There is no regulatory brake, and the deal does not cut Finnish consumers off: it is a financial hedge, not a physical carve-out, so the electrons still flow onto the grid. Even so, another PPA of this size on the existing fleet looks unlikely, the reason being portfolio weight, not regulation. Loviisa is 1,014 [megawatts], c.30% of Fortum's c.3,260 MW attributable nuclear and c.15% of group generation, and this deal already ties up half. We see the next leg coming instead from new-build under the [memorandum of understanding], longer-dated and hinging on [a final investment decision]," the research firm wrote. Against this backdrop, analysts raised the reduce-rated stock's price target to 25.3 euros from 22.6 euros. AlphaValue/Baader Europe noted that the near-term upside for the stock looks "more limited" after a recent surge and that it does not rule out profit-taking, adding that it recommends investors buy on weakness.