Sempra Energy to buy Oncor for $9.45 billion in blow for Berkshire

SAN DIEGO: Sempra Energy said it will buy Oncor for $9.45 billion (7.34 billion pounds) in cash after Energy Future Holdings Corp, which indirectly owns Oncor, abandoned a deal to sell the power transmission company to Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc.

San Diego-based Sempra expects to own about 60 per cent of a reorganised Energy Future after the transaction that is valued at $18.8 billion, including Dallas-based Oncor’s debt, it said late on Sunday.

The development represents a rare blow for Buffett, who avoids bidding wars for companies and had swooped in two months ago to buy Oncor after two previous attempts by Energy Future to sell it were blocked by Texas regulators.

In July, the energy unit of Berkshire Hathaway agreed to buy Oncor for $9 billion, but the deal ran into trouble after Energy Future’s biggest creditor Elliott Management Corp opposed the sale arguing it undervalued Oncor.

Elliott also tried to put together its own bid for $9.3 billion to buy Oncor.

Separately, Berkshire said it would not be raising its offer for Oncor, which delivers power to more than 3.4 million homes and businesses.

“Elliott is supportive of the proposed Sempra transaction, which provides substantially greater recoveries to all creditors of Energy Future than the proposed Berkshire transaction,” Elliott said.

Berkshire, which made the offer to Oncor in order to step up its pursuit of steady profits from utilities and infrastructure deals, did not respond to a request for comment. Sources said that Sempra had decided to make an offer for Oncor after seeing the opposition that Berkshire faced from Elliott. — Reuters