Spain’s Iberdrola pushes global growth with $4.3b US deal

Bloomberg

Iberdrola SA agreed to buy PNM Resources Inc for $4.3 billion, pushing deeper into the US power market
as the Spanish utility strengthens its position as a global giant in an industry that’s being transformed.
The deal — at $50.30 per PNM share and a 10% premium — valued PNM at $8.3 billion including debt. It’s Iberdrola’s eighth acquisition since the start of the coronavirus pandemic. The company bought Infigen Energy in Australia in September.
It continues a strategy by Chief Executive Officer Ignacio Galan to grow beyond the Iberian peninsula and build a business with worldwide reach in power grids and renewables plants.
Galan was among the first in the utility business to wind down coal plants and build renewables, taking advantage of a plunge in the cost of wind turbines and government incentives to slash emissions. That’s touched off a flurry of deals to reshape the electricity industry, drawing oil majors including Royal Dutch Shell Plc and Total SA to grab a part of a business once dominated by utilities.
“We have been pioneers in the energy revolution for 20 years, when everybody thought electricity couldn’t be produced with clean sources,” Galan told analysts during a results call on Wednesday. “We started our energy transition 20 years ago.”
Overall, this year’s buying spree has helped boost Iberdrola’s pipeline of future power projects to more than 70 gigawatts of capacity.
That’s 40% more green energy than BP Plc has said it plans to have ready to go in the next decade, the most ambitious plan among European oil majors.