J-Power's $258 mln bid for Genex Power passes on proxy votes, Genex says (updated)
16/07/2024 01:40
(Adds details of the vote plus background from paragraph 3)
By Scott Murdoch
SYDNEY, July 16 (Reuters) - Japan's Electric Power
Development's (J-Power) 9513.T A$381 million ($257.56 million)
buyout of Australia's Genex Power GNX.AX has been approved on
proxy votes, according to a Genex announcement on Tuesday.
J-Power had offered 27.5 Australian cents per share for the
renewable energy firm in which it already owns 7.7%.
The bid was backed by 83.54% of the proxy votes cast ahead
of an investor meeting, according to a company slide shown at
the meeting in Sydney on Tuesday, surpassing the requirement of
at least 75% for the deal to proceed. A majority of individual
shareholders backed the deal, the slide showed.
The final result of the vote will be known later on Tuesday.
J-Power, a major power generator with coal-fired power
plants and hydroelectric facilities, deepened its 2030 emission
reduction target last year by 1.3 million tons from 2013 levels.
The Japanese firm is a joint owner and developer of
Genex's Kidston wind project and Bulli Creek clean energy
project, which are both in the Australian state of Queensland.
The offer represented a 48.5% premium to Genex's share price
in early March before the J-Power bid.
J-Power had originally offered 24 Australian cents, Genex
said in March, before raising its offer to the level that was
backed by the buyout target's board.
The bid was backed by Genex's largest shareholder Skip
Capital, an investment firm founded by Atlassian co-founder
Scott Farquhar, that holds 19.9% of Genex, local media reported
on Tuesday.
(Reporting by Scott Murdoch; Editing by Muralikumar
Anantharaman and Christopher Cushing)
((Scott.Murdoch@thomsonreuters.com;))