Ayala and Iberdrola put heat in the race for the australian Infigen after raising their offers

By Shriya Ramakrishnan and Shashwat Awasthi

29 jun (Reuters) – The struggle for Infigen Energy rose in temperature on Monday after the Spanish Iberdrola to rise their offer for the australian company, solar and wind energy to 856 million australian dollars (589,1 million dollars), shortly after the conglomerate philippine Ayala Corp to improve yours.

UAC Energy, with headquarters in the Philippines, a joint venture of Ayala’s AC Energy and UPC Renewables Group based in Hong Kong, climbed his offer in cash on Monday to 0,86 australian dollars per share, from 0,80 that was proposed on a principle, this equals the initial offering of Iberdrola.

UAC also freed its offer of a series of conditions that had irritated to Infigen.

Iberdrola responded immediately by sweetening its offer at 3 cents to 0.89 australian dollars per share, an amount slightly more than 0,885 that Infigen closed on the stock exchange on Friday, valuing the group of renewable 856 million australian dollars.

The shares of Infigen rose for the Monday, a 4% 80,915 dollars, indicating that investors expect that both suitors to improve even more their offerings.

Infigen said it is studying the evolution of both offers and advised its shareholders not to take any action.

Analysts had predicted a bidding war for the assets of Infigen, comprising seven wind farms and a large portfolio of projects of 600 mw that has recently frozen to save money.

Infigen entered the radar of Iberdrola and UAC after the australian collapse in the stock market due to the fall of energy prices in Australia, in a time when businesses wind and solar are facing the challenges of connecting new projects to an unstable network.

UAC already has the approval of his offer by the Committee on Foreign Investment in Australia, at a time when the country has introduced stricter policies to monitor foreign investments, which increases the interest in the australian assets with problems in the wake of the pandemic of coronavirus.

Infigen had expressly endorsed the offer of Iberdrola, 7.5% higher than the first UAC, and with fewer conditions than this.

“We believe that Iberdrola may need to reduce the conditions of their offer or offering a bid price higher to make it clearly superior and maintain the recommendation of Infigen”, said analysts of RBC in a report to clients.

(1 us dollar = 1,4531 australian dollars)

(Information of Shriya Ramakrishnan and Shashwat Awasthi in Bengaluru; translated by Jose Elias Rodriguez)