|
|
|
| Allianz Capital Partners & Borealis Infrastructure Management’s €1.4 billion acquisition of Net4Gas | |
| Target adviser | JPMorgan |
| Acquirers’ advisers | Barclays, KPMG |
| return to the Deals of the Year 2013 index | |
In a lacklustre year for dealmaking in emerging Europe, the acquisition of Czech gas transmission firm Net4Gas by German insurer Allianz and the infrastructure arm of Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System stood out by virtue of its complexity and the competitiveness of the bidding process.
The deal was also noteworthy in combining two key current trends in M&A: the pullback from central and eastern Europe by western strategic investors – in this case Germany’s RWE – and the increasing appetite of international institutional buyers for direct investment in infrastructure assets.
Net4Gas owns and operates a network of more than 3,600 kilometres of pipelines that supplies gas to both the Czech domestic market and countries across Europe. Competition for the firm was fierce, with five contenders – including local Czech groups EPH and KKCG, as well as two other consortiums featuring international infrastructure investors – reaching the final bidding round.
The winning bid was also notable for being backed by a complex acquisition financing facility that was one of the largest ever seen in the Czech Republic. A consortium of 13 banks underwrote the €1.4 billion multi-currency facility, which combined euro, dollar and Czech koruna tranches to reflect Net4Gas’s underlying revenue streams.
Announced in March, the acquisition was completed in August. It was the largest-ever gas utility transaction in the Czech Republic and left Allianz Capital Partners and Borealis Infrastructure Management with equal stakes in Net4Gas.
