TNB completes stake buy in UK solar power portfolio

KUALA LUMPUR: Tenaga Nasional Bhd (TNB) has completed the acquisition of a 50 per cent stake in one of Britain’s largest portfolios of operating solar power assets with a combined net installed capacity of 365 megawatts.

The acquisition, with an enterprise value of £470 million (RM2.6 billion), was made through Vortex Solar UK Ltd — an indirect wholly-owned unit of TNB’s joint venture (JV) Vortex Solar Investments S.a.r.l., it said in a filing with Bursa Malaysia yesterday.

TNB holds a 50 per cent stake in the JV company.

The utility giant said the deal was part of its five-year global expansion plan to acquire 250MW capacity of renewable energy (RE) projects by 2020.

TNB funded the acquisition through a US$750 million (RM3.3 billion) sukuk proceed issued last October.

The deal would help TNB deliver its RE international expansion plan more than one year ahead of schedule, said its president and chief executive officer Datuk Seri Ir Azman Mohd in the statement. Francis Dass