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Bloomberg
Blackstone Group is considering selling its stake in Cheniere Energy Partners LP, according to people familiar with the matter, seven years after agreeing to invest about $1.5 billion in the owner of the first major liquefied natural gas export terminal in the US.
The private equity firm is working with an adviser on a potential sale of its interest in Cheniere Energy Partners, a limited partnership created by Cheniere Energy Inc., said the people, who asked to not be identified because the matter isn’t public. Blackstone is seeking a premium for its stake and marketing it to a small number of infrastructure, pension and sovereign wealth funds, said the people.
Blackstone owned 203.4 million common units in the Houston-based company as of February 20, according to regulatory filings. That stake — about 58% of the company’s outstanding common units —was worth $8.9 billion based on its unit price at the close.
Blackstone began working with an adviser to explore shopping the stake after receiving unsolicited interest from potential buyers, one of the people said. Blackstone is under no pressure to sell and may opt to keep the stake, they said.
Cheniere Energy Partners, which fell as much as 0.7 percent earlier in day, gained 1.7 percent to $43.92 per unit in New York, giving the company a market value of about $21 billion, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Blackstone agreed to invest in Cheniere Energy Partners in 2012, when the company was lining up financing under the leadership of Charif Souki, the co-founder and former chief executive officer of Cheniere Energy and Cheniere Energy Partners.
The entity was set up by Cheniere Energy Inc. to house Louisiana’s Sabine Pass, the first major terminal in the lower 48 states to export shale gas overseas. Since then, three other projects have begun producing LNG, with two more slated to start up soon and a long list of others planned or proposed. Sabine Pass now represents more than half of the US’s total LNG export capacity.