There's more to Alinta Energy's decision to delay its initial public offering.
Street Talk can reveal Alinta has been sold to Hong Kong's Chow Tai Fook Enterprises for a sale price north of $4 billion.
A deal has been signed and an announcement will be made internally this morning.
It is understood Alinta's private equity and hedge fund owners, led by TPG, will be able to cash out in full.
Street Talk can also reveal Chow Tai Fook was advised by Alan Young and Matt Roberts at Highbury Partnership, with legal advice from Allen & Overy. Alinta was advised by Lazard.
Chow Tai Fook Enterprises is a newcomer to Australian energy markets and infrastructure investing. It is a private Hong Kong-based holding company owned and controlled by the Cheng family.
The Cheng family has a diverse range of investments, with a focus on property development and investment, hospitality services, infrastructure, aircraft leasing, department stores, jewellers and other consumer and retail businesses.
The transaction, which is subject to Foreign Investment Review Board approval, comes more than six months after Alinta scrapped a trade sale process. The business had attracted interest from AGL Energy, which shaped as the most likely buyer last year, and China's Huadian, but neither put forward an offer that was acceptable to Alinta's shareholders.
Instead, Alinta's owners were advancing down the IPO path and were scheduled to have lodged a prospectus with the corporate regulator this week.
Alinta is a Western Australian gas retailer and power producer, which also owns a collection of infrastructure assets, with earnings worth close to $400 million a year.
TPG and a bunch of other funds acquired Alinta in 2011 via a debt for equity swap.
We supply natural gas and electricity to 800,000 residential and commercial & industrial customers throughout Australia. We’ve been retailing gas in Western Australia since 1995 and over the years we’ve learnt a lot from our customers. We know that many Australians are doing it tough and we’re here to help. We want to make energy more affordable.
Alinta Energy’s power generation and energy infrastructure portfolio includes a number of power stations, transmission lines and natural gas pipelines in Australia and a power station in New Zealand. The combined installed capacity of the power stations represents approximately 1,800MW of base load, intermediate and peaking power generation.
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