Babcock & Brown acquires Enersis for €490mn

12/19/05 - newratings.com

LONDON, December 19 (newratings.com) – Babcock & Brown Ltd (FNK), Australia's second-biggest investment bank, Monday announced that it had acquired Enersis II SGPS SA for €490 million ($590 million). The company intends to eventually split Enersis and sell its assets.

Portuguese conglomerate Semapa-Sociedade de Investimento e Gestao SGPS SA had an 89.92% stake in Enersis, which is one of Europe's largest independent renewable energy companies with hydro and wind projects in Portugal, Spain and France. Astural Ltd and Sonagi SGPS had stakes of 9.41% and 0.67%, respectively, in the wind energy and hydropower producer. Semapa, which is Portugal's second-biggest cement company, announced on Friday last week that it had sold its stake in Enersis to Sydney-based Babcock & Brown for €420.9 million.

Babcock & Brown said that it intends to evaluate Enersis’ assets over the next six months to decide which of them would be sold to companies managed by the investment bank. The assets would either be sold to third parties or to its own funds, such as Babcock and Brown Wind Partners Group and Babcock and Brown Environmental Investments Ltd.

Babcock and Brown said that the acquisition was financed by existing debt facilities and an acquisition finance facility from Banco Espirito Santo.