Origin, Goodman ponder demergers, spin-offs

Origin is believed to have its sights on a demerger or initial public offering. Picture: Carla Gottgens/Bloomberg

Two listed powerhouses, Origin Energy and Goodman Group, could both have their sights on major demergers or spin-offs of units in the coming years.

For Goodman, the move would involve a separate data centre company to run independently to its industrial property business, which is something that has been discussed by market experts.

Origin, subject to the backing of other stakeholders, is believed to have its sights on a demerger or initial public offering of its highly successful Kraken technology platform that sits within its Octopus business, now the largest energy retailer in the United Kingdom.

At its half-year results last week, Origin said the business had experienced significant global growth and was a leading energy technology.

Octopus and Kraken, its global energy technology platform that is essentially a software operation, now have 15 million customer accounts globally.

The 13.3 million accounts of Octopus is up 10 per cent since December 2023.

It remains on the growth path with investment outside the United Kingdom, where it now has 1.8 million ­accounts, an amount that has doubled in 12 months.

Its share of Octopus Energy earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation was $55m for the six months to the end of December.

Analysts have placed a $US9bn ($14.1bn) valuation on the business on a see-through value from equity raising rounds.

Origin first acquired a 20 per cent stake in Octopus in May 2020, and agreed to licence the Kraken platform and has increased its stake to 23 per cent.

The plan would likely be to split out the Kraken business, which is in fact run as a separate business, to achieve a multiple akin to a software company, but this would be a move all the shareholders in the business would need to agree upon.

Much of whether Origin embarks on a float or demerger of Kraken, which sits in Octopus, would depend on the performance of both groups in the next few years.