The bidding for Aussie renewables company Infigen Energy (ASX:IFN) has turned into a hot takeover battle between Spain’s Iberdrola SA (BME:IBE) and UAC Energy Holdings Pty Ltd (UAC) as both of them upgraded their offers.
UAC, which is owned by Philippine conglomerate Ayala Corporation’s AC Energy and the Hong Kong-based UPC Renewables Group, earlier this month bought a 12.82% stake in Infigen and then made an offer of AUD 0.80 (USD 0.55/EUR 0.49) per share for the rest of the stock.
On Monday, UAC increased its initial takeover offer to AUD 0.86 per share, thus matching a rival proposal launched by Spanish utility Iberdrola, which values Infigen at AUD 840.6 million. The Philippine group also announced that there were no remaining conditions on its takeover offer and approval from the Foreign Investment Review Board has been secured.
Iberdrola responded to UAC’s move with a counter-proposal, increasing its own offer to Infigen’s shareholders to AUD 0.89 per share. This, in turn, has raised the target’s value to AUD 864 million. After receiving Iberdrola’s initial bid, Infigen said that this proposal is “less conditional” than the one placed by UAC. The Spanish group has in place a pre-bid agreement with The Children’s Investment Fund Management LTD (TCI Funds), its largest shareholder which also owns around a third of Infigen’s shares, to buy from it a stake of 20% in Infigen no earlier than two months after commencement of the initial offer from June 17. To succeed with its bid, Iberdrola will need to secure more than 50% of Infigen’s outstanding securities on a fully diluted basis.
In response to the updated proposals, Infigen has recommended that its shareholders take no action until a detailed assessment is made. UAC’s offer will be open until July 24, while the bid by Iberdrola will close on July 30.
At present, Infigen owns about 670 MW of installed onshore wind capacity along with 268 MW of conventional generation and energy storage firming assets plus 246 MW of additional renewable power purchase agreements (PPAs) with third parties. Also, the company has a 1-GW-plus portfolio of wind and solar projects in different stages of development.
(AUD 1.0 = USD 0.688/EUR 0.611)
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Alinta wind farm. Image by: Infigen Energy (www.infigenenergy.com).
