Iberdrola completes merger with Avangrid, takes it private

Spanish utility Iberdrola wrapped up some unfinished business before ringing in the new year, completing its merger with US subsidiary Avangrid by acquiring the outstanding 18.4% of the shares it did not already control, a deal totaling roughly $2.5 billion.

Avangrid shareholders will receive $35.75 per share, an 11.4% premium over the closing price of its common stock on March 6, 2024, the last unaffected trading day prior to Avangrid’s announcement of receipt of Iberdrola’s unsolicited offer. Shareholders who owned the stock on December 2, 2024, will also receive a proportional quarterly dividend until closing, paid today, January 2, 2025.

Avangrid has been delisted from the New York Stock Exchange and will now function as a private company, maintaining its headquarters in Orange, Connecticut. About a decade ago, Iberdrola merged its North American subsidiary with the listed UIL Holdings to give rise to Avangrid, which had been traded until now.

Avangrid owns and operates numerous renewable energy generation facilities across the United States and runs eight electric and natural gas utilities including Central Maine Power Company, New York State Electric & Gas Corporation (NYSEG), and Rochester Gas and Electric Corporation (RG&E).

Avangrid distributes electricity to seven million people in New York, Connecticut, Maine, and Massachusetts and has an installed capacity of 8,700 MW of renewable energy. The company owns more than $46 billion in assets.

Who signed off on this?

The merger was completed after Iberdrola was given the green light by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), the Maine utility regulator, and the New York state regulator.

The Maine Public Utilities Commission declined to review the sale, pointing to Iberdrola’s 2008 reorganisation case, which they described as “thoroughly litigated.” The 2008 transaction included a 15-page stipulation signed by nine parties, including the Office of the Public Advocate, that contained 59 conditions that the companies say are designed to protect Maine utilities and ratepayers.

“This is a rare case in which the Commission has previously approved the very same corporate organisational structure that the Petitioners now propose,” reads the Examiner’s Report published by Maine Public Utilities Commission staff on August 26, 2024. The Commission determined since Iberdrola already controlled most of Avangrid, a total buyout would not make much of an impact on how the company was run.

Last November, Maine regulators ordered Central Maine Power to pay $80,000 in legal fees to advocacy group Our Power, which fought its successful privatisation push, marking the first time the Maine Public Utilities Commission exercised a new state law that forces utilities to pay some expenses incurred by intervenors in utility regulatory proceedings. The same group unsuccessfully attempted to replace Maine’s two investor-owned utilities with a new public power utility through a ballot referendum last year.

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What’s in it for them?

Iberdrola maintains the merger will allow it to invest in the United States more efficiently by participating more economically in new energy infrastructure projects in its grid and renewable businesses to help meet the growing demand from utilities and data centers.

Today Avangrid announced a power purchase agreement (PPA) with Portland General Electric (PGE) for the 120 MWac Tower Solar project, which the Iberdrola Group is building in Morrow County, Oregon, in collaboration with data centre solutions provider QTS and data centre junkie, Meta.

QTS is developing a campus nearby to support a Meta data centre to be powered in part by Tower Solar. Once completed in 2026, it will become Avangrid’s sixth solar site in Oregon and its 17th renewable power project in the state. QTS and Meta will receive Renewable Energy Certificates through PGE’s Green Future Impact Program.

Alongside Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners, Avangrid is also developing the United States’ first utility-scale offshore wind project, Vineyard Wind 1, which sent first power to the grid almost exactly one year ago. This summer, construction was briefly halted on the project after a GE Vernova turbine blade failed during installation. Part of the blade broke off and fell into the ocean, prompting a lengthy investigation and weeks of debris washing ashore on Northeastern beaches. GE Vernova ultimately fired or suspended workers at the LM Wind Power factory in Gaspé, Canada, one of two places where the Haliade-X blades are made and construction has resumed.

Originally published by Paul Gerke on Power Grid International.