Brookfield buys majority in renewables developer Neoen in $6.6 billion deal

Brookfield Asset Management, the world's largest renewables investor, is looking to buy a majority stake in French renewables development company Neoen. The Canadian-based investor and its partner, Singapore's Temasek, are eying a 53.3 percent stake in a deal that values Neoen at €6.1 billion ($6.6 billion).

The shares will come from France's Impala SAS, which owns 42.15 percent in the company, the Fonds Stratégique de Participations (FSP), Cartusia, Neoen Chairman Xavier Barbaro, and other shareholders.

Neoen is developing projects across Australia, France, the Nordics, Mexico and Canada. The company's portfolio includes 8 GW of wind, solar and energy storage assets in operation and under construction, as well as 20 GW of projects in advanced development stages.

Announcing the deal, Xavier Barbaro, Chairman and CEO of Neoen, said: "After 15 years of successful and profitable growth with Impala as our key shareholder, we are thrilled to open a new chapter in Neoen's history, with the arrival of Brookfield as our new majority shareholder." 

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Connor Teskey, CEO for renewable power & transition at Brookfield Asset Management, said in a release: "Acquiring Neoen further strengthens Brookfield's global scale, while diversifying into key renewables markets and adding expertise in battery storage technology."

Jacques Veyrat, Founder and President at Impala called Brookfield "a responsible actor and world leader in the renewable energy market," and said: "Impala created Neoen 15 years ago and have since then supported every stage of its development in France and then internationally, with an outstanding success in Australia." Neoen is the largest renewables developer in Australia, where it owns the Victoria Big Battery and the upcoming, even bigger, Collie battery.

Brookfield will purchase Neoen through the Brookfield Global Transition Fund II, whose investors include the UAE, which put in $2 billion at the COP28 summit last year. Brookfield is eying a corpus of $25 billion for BGTF II, all which will go towards helping accelerate the global transition to a net zero economy.