Swiss Buyout Firm Partners Eyes $5 Billion of Infrastructure Asset Sales
(Bloomberg) — Partners Group Holding AG is considering the sale of some of its infrastructure assets with a combined value of more than $5 billion as the Swiss buyout firm seeks to take advantage of investor appetite in the sector, according to people familiar with the matter.
The firm is speaking with advisers as it looks at potential options including a sale of Gren, a Northern European energy company providing services such as district heating, industrial energy and energy-to-waste, people familiar with the matter said, asking not to be identified as the matter is private. Gren could be valued at about €1.5 billion ($1.6 billion) in a sale though no formal process has kicked off yet, the people said.
The buyout firm is also considering the sale of its controlling stake in CapeOmega, a Norwegian natural-gas transport company it acquired in 2019. Partners has hired JPMorgan Chase & Co. to find suitors for its holding that could be valued at more than €2 billion, including debt, the people said. Partners also is exploring a sale of German renewable energy company VSB Group, which could be valued at more than €1.5 billion in a disposal, the people said. The VSB sale plans were first reported by Reuters News this month.
Partners and JPMorgan declined to comment.
Demand for infrastructure is picking up again, with investors viewing the asset class as helping the world transition to more carbon-friendly sources of energy. This has led large asset managers like BlackRock Inc. to expand in the sector with the acquisition of Global Infrastructure Partners for about $12.5 billion in the year.
BlackRock CEO Larry Fink said at the time that infrastructure would be “one of the fastest-growing” areas in asset management in the next 10 years. Separately, KKR & Co. agreed to acquire renewable-energy producer Encavis AG on Thursday in a deal that values the German company at about €2.8 billion ($3 billion).
CapeOmega owns gas platforms, pipelines and processing plants in Norway and is working on a carbon capture and storage system. Gren operates more than 80 heating and cooling production plants in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and the UK, according to its website. VSB has more than 500 employees globally and the firm has an installed capacity of 1,300 megawatts. It has built 700 turbines and 87 photovoltaic plants.
Partners has been running a sale process for German metering company Techem GmbH. TPG Inc is in talks to acquire the business and is one of the main remaining bidders, Bloomberg News reported in March.
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