Actis, a pan-emerging market private equity investor, has acquired the majority interest in three power assets in Cameroon from The AES Corporation.
Actis will pay USD202 million net of closing price adjustments for a 56 per cent stake in Cameroon’s national integrated utility, Société Nationale d’Electricité (SONEL), and in two independent power plants, Kribi and Dibamba.
SONEL provides 933MW of generation and supplies electricity to over 800,000 customer connections throughout the country, while Kribi and Dibamba contribute a combined 302 MW towards Cameroon’s generation capacity. Actis will own SONEL, and Globeleq, Actis’ wholly-owned private power company, will directly own and operate Kribi and Dibamba.
Actis supplies over 33 million consumers around the world with electricity every day. Since 2002, the firm has invested over USD1.4 billion into the sector, including Umeme, Uganda’s electricity distribution company, where it invested in 2005. In 2012, Actis led a heavily oversubscribed successful IPO on the Ugandan and Kenyan stock exchanges, attracting high quality institutional investors and a broad base of Ugandan retail investors into the company’s shareholding. Since 2011 Actis has also owned 92 per cent of Energuate, which operates the majority of Guatemala’s national grid.
Actis energy co-head Torbjorn Caesar says: “We are pleased to have completed the transaction with AES. Cameroon is a country with great potential, and our considerable experience in the energy space, combined with our expertise in Africa, makes us confident that we can deliver strong infrastructure and excellent customer service.”
