CHENNAI: Adani Green Energy, the renewable power unit of the Adani group, said on Wednesday that it is buying 100 per cent of renewable energy major SB Energy in a deal that values the company at $3.5 billion, or around Rs 25,500 crore.
SB Energy is owned jointly by Japanese investment giant Softbank and India’s Bharti Group. Softbank owns an 80 per cent stake and Bharti the rest. The takeover of SB Energy will make Adani Green Energy the world’s largest solar energy firm and is the largest such deal in the Indian renewable segment so far. Along with SB Energy’s assets, Adani Green will have a portfolio of 24.3 gigawatts.
SB Energy has a portfolio of 4,954 MW (4.95 GW) of solar and wind assets spread across four states in India, of which 1.4 GW is currently operational and the rest is in the project pipeline. All of SB’s projects are backed by 25-year power purchase agreements.
“AGEL signed share purchase agreements for the acquisition of 100 per cent interest in SB Energy India from SoftBank Group and Bharti Group,” the company said in a statement, adding that the target portfolio consists of large-scale utility assets with 84 per cent solar capacity (4,180 MW), 9 per cent wind-solar hybrid capacity (450 MW) and 7 per cent wind capacity (324 MW).
“This acquisition is another step towards the vision we stated in January 2020, wherein we laid out our plans to become the world’s largest solar player by 2025... The renewable energy platform that we are building will lay the foundation for attracting several other global industries that are increasingly looking to reduce their carbon footprint...,” said Gautam Adani, Chairman, Adani Group.
Softbank’s CEO Masayoshi Son said that as the Softbank group “continues its transition to a global investment holding company focused on accelerating the deployment of artificial intelligence, it believes now is the right time to bring in the Adani Group to help drive the next phase its India growth”.