Deal: SPIC acquired Pacific Hydro from IFM

Value: Confidential

Area: M&A

Key Players: The King & Wood Mallesons team was led by partners Xiong Jin in Beijing and Jonathan Grant in Sydney (pictured), with support from partner Malcolm Brennan, senior associates Miriam Kleiner and Sun Rui, and associates Anna Chen and Elena Ng.

The Herbert Smith Freehills (HSF) team was led by partners David Ryan, Gerard Pike and Juan-Jose Zentner, who were supported by a large team led by senior associate Nikki Carroll and solicitor Bailee Walker.

Deal significance:

China’s State Power Investment Corporation (SPIC) is one of the five largest power generation groups in China, with over 100 GW of installed capacity, according to a release from King & Wood Mallesons (KWM).

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It has over US$113 billion of generation assets under management across 35 countries and regions including China, Japan, Turkey, Malta, Vietnam, Pakistan and Guinea.

Pacific Hydro is a global owner, operator and developer of wind and hydro renewable energy assets, headquartered in Melbourne, Australia. It has a high quality and diversified portfolio of 19 operating assets across Chile, Australia and Brazil.

It was a wholly-owned subsidiary of Industry Funds Management, an Australian investment management company.

SPIC acquired Pacific Hydro from IFM. This is SPIC’s first investment into Australia.

Completion of the acquisition is scheduled to occur early in 2016 for the Australian and Chilean businesses, and later in the year for Brazil.

KWM’s lead Australian partner, Jonathan Grant, said “It is one of the biggest investments by a Chinese bidder into Australia ever and one of the few that has been able to successfully navigate a competitive bidding process.”

HSF lead partner David Ryan said, “This was a very unique and interesting transaction, covering multiple jurisdictions and stakeholders and requiring a number of different structuring options. At times it was like running multiple sale processes at once."