Cannon-Brookes vehicle to buy Sun Cable out of administration

Sun Cable will be acquired by an entity affiliated with Grok Ventures, an investment vehicle of Australian billionaire Mike Cannon-Brookes, as announced on Friday by the voluntary administrators of the company, namely FTI Consulting.

Sun Cable is progressing the AUD-30-billion-plus (USD 19.6bn/EUR 18.2bn) Australia-Asia PowerLink (AAPowerLink) project, intended to deliver renewable electricity to Darwin and Singapore. Backed by billionaires Andrew Forrest and Mike Cannon-Brookes, it entered voluntary administration in January due to a lack of consensus among shareholders on the company’s funding structure. Multiple offers were submitted to the business’ administrators.

The sale is expected to be completed by the end of July 2023. FTI Consulting said that the buyer plans to continue to advance the AAPowerLink project to a final investment decision with an initial stage to provide 0.9 GW of generation to Darwin and 1.8 GW to Singapore.

Clean energy investor Quinbrook Infrastructure Partners is a partner in the buyer consortium, Grok said separately and added that it looks forward to working with its investment partners and management to deliver on Sun Cable’s ambitious renewable energy projects.

Mike Cannon Brookes commented: “A big step in the right direction. We've always believed in the possibilities Sun Cable presents in exporting our boundless sunshine, and what it could mean for Australia. It's time to stretch our country's ambition. We need to take big swings if we are going to be a renewable energy superpower. So swing we will.”

(AUD 1 = USD 0.653/EUR 0.608)

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