A cross-border KWM team has acted as PRC and Australian advisers to China’s State Power Investment Corporation (SPIC) on its acquisition of Pacific Hydro, IFM’s renewable energy portfolio.  This is one of the largest ever acquisitions by a Chinese bidder in Australia and signals the ongoing appetite from Chinese investors for Australian assets.

SPIC is one of the 5 largest power generation groups in China, with over 100 GW of installed capacity. 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.  This is SPIC’s first investment into Australia.

Pacific Hydro is an independent, global owner, operator and developer of wind and hydro renewable energy assets. Pacific Hydro has a high quality and diversified portfolio of 19 operating assets across Chile, Australia and Brazil (together with a substantial pipeline of development projects in those markets and a growing electricity retail platform in Australia).

KWM’s lead Australian partner, Jonathan Grant said: “KWM is honoured to have acted for SPIC in this landmark transaction – 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. With significant experience advising Chinese bidders investing into Australia and vice versa, KWM was able to bring both an Australian and a Chinese perspective to the negotiations, and guide SPIC on how to successfully meet the complex web of regulatory requirements while delivering funding and execution certainty for the sellers.”

KWM’s lead China partner, Xiong Jin commented:  “The transaction involved complex cross-border legal, regulatory and transaction management issues which the KWM global team, in China and Australia, was able to expertly, seamlessly and proactively manage to ensure SPIC was the successful bidder. We were also deeply impressed by the determination and ability of SPIC, as a huge SOE group, to move swiftly and be flexible in winning the bid.”

Assets from the target group involved in the transaction include tens of wind and hydro renewable energy assets which have either already been under operation or development. Completion of the acquisition is scheduled to occur early in the new year (for the Australian and Chilean businesses) and later next year for Brazil.

The KWM team was led by Jonathan Grant (Australian M&A partner, who is now based in Beijing), Malcolm Brennan (Regulatory partner, Canberra) and Xiong Jin (M&A partner, Beijing).