Adani Green Energy Limited (AGEL), the renewable arm of the conglomerate group formally announced its outright acquisition of SB Energy early on Wednesday morning in a deal worth $3.5 billion (Rs. 24,000 crore), the largest such transaction in India’s renewable story.
ET had reported the same development in its April 17 edition, as talks had rapidly intensified over the previous fortnight as SB Energy’s previous talks with Canadian Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) had broken down due to differences in evaluations.
Adani Green bought out both Masayoshi Son-led SoftBank Group and Bharti Group, who had an 80% and 20% in SB Energy respectively.
Adani Green will receive a kitty worth 4,954 MW of solar, wind, and solar-wind hybrid projects in the deal. 1,400 MW of these projects are operational, while the rest are in the pipeline. All of the projects have a 25-year power purchase agreement, as has been AGEL’s modus operandi till now.
With this acquisition, Adani Green’s capacity balloons to 24,300 MW (including 4,500 MW worth of solar projects for which the letter of awards are awaited), just 700 MW shy of its 25,000 MW target by 2025.
“This acquisition is another step towards the vision we stated in January 2020, wherein we laid out our plans to become the world’s largest solar player by 2025 and thereafter the world’s largest renewable company by 2030,” said Gautam Adani, chairman, Adani Group.
Son added: “As SBG continues our transition to a global investment holding company focused on accelerating the deployment of artificial intelligence, we believe now is the right time to bring in the Adani Group to help drive the next phase of SB Energy India’s growth.”
Chairman of Bharti Enterprises Sunil Mittal, who ET reported that was personally driving the negotiations with Gautam Adani, said, “I am glad that Bharti could play a constructive role in partnership with SoftBank.”
