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Australia: Electric grid privatization may go to foreign investors

By  |  July 25, 2016

State Grid Corp of China and Hong Kong’s Cheung Kong Infrastructure Holdings have offered a bid for Australia’s biggest electricity network, a source with knowledge of the deal said, in a privatization expected to fetch over $7.5 billion.

Ausgrid serves nearly a quarter of New South Wale’s 7.5 million people and could fetch more than $7.47 billion, according to comparable valuations of other grid sales, a record sum for an Australian privatization which the government wants to pay for infrastructure upgrades.

An absence of local bidders may well raise the possibility the sale could run afoul of the federal government’s Foreign Investment Review Board (FIRB), which may decide Ausgrid must stay locally owned. FIRB declined to comment.

Full Content: Reuters

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