First Sentier buys John Laing’s wind farms for $285m
John Laing has sold its Australian wind farms for $285m to domestic fund manager First Sentier Investors.
John Laing has sold its Australian wind farms for $285m to domestic fund manager First Sentier Investors, adding to its local stakes in airports, water utilities and gas distribution companies.
The deal, foreshadowed by The Australian’s DataRoom column, includes John Laing’s six wind farms in South Australia, Victoria and Tasmania with a total generation capacity of 514 megawatts, 209MW of it controlled by the British firm.
First Sentier Investors, with $219bn in assets, was formerly known as Colonial First State Global Asset Management and owns a string of infrastructure assets in Australia including stakes in Brisbane and Adelaide airports, commercial rooftop solar provider CleanPeak Energy, NZ gas distributor FirstGas and Water Utilities Australia.
The race to buy the wind farms was between First Sentier and ICG with the bidders vying for a smaller portfolio after John Laing opted to exclude solar assets in its Australian business, including the Sunraysia solar farm and the Finley solar project in NSW.
John Laing is expected to sell the solar farms once they have been derisked for infrastructure investors amid ongoing volatility within the solar sector in Australia.
“Since acquiring interests in these assets during 2015-2018, John Laing has de-risked the portfolio, achieved key project delivery milestones and has been actively involved in putting in place off-take and new financing arrangements,” John Laing said in a statement.
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