ACEN Corp.’s joint venture, IBV ACEN Renewables Asia Pte. Ltd., has completed the acquisition of a 49% stake in a 70-megawatt solar project in Bangladesh, the Ayala-led company announced Thursday.
IBV ACEN has fulfilled all conditions under the sales and purchase agreements with the Bangladeshi holding company Sonagazi Sun Holdings Pte. Ltd., ACEN said in a regulatory filing on Thursday.
While the company did not provide specific financial details, it said the acquisition price is “less than 10% of ACEN’s book value as of September 30, 2024.”
IBV ACEN Renewables Asia is a joint venture between ACEN Renewables International Pte. Ltd., a unit of ACEN, and ib vogt (Singapore) Pte. Ltd.
Ib vogt Singapore is a subsidiary of ib vogt GmbH, a German company specialized in developing and supplying large-scale turnkey photovoltaic installations.
The company has built or has projects under construction worth 4.3 gigawatts (GW), with a project pipeline of 55 GW.
In its earlier announcement, ACEN said that ACEN Renewables International planned to invest as much as $18 million (about P1.04 billion) in the construction of the solar project.
The investment matches ACEN’s expected contribution of up to $200 million in equity investments to accelerate the deployment of renewable energy in Asia.
The joint venture will focus on ready projects in Bangladesh, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia and other countries in the Asia-Pacific region, with a minimum target operating capacity of 1,000 MW.
ACEN, the publicly traded energy platform of Ayala Corp., has a portfolio of approximately 6.8 GW of attributable renewable capacity in operation, under construction and committed projects.
“ACEN’s renewable capacity has grown to almost 7 GW, in line with the strong momentum behind the region’s energy transition. The company continues to focus on execution, especially for projects under construction and in development,” said ACEN President Eric T. Francia.
For the nine months ended September, the power company’s attributable net income rose 23.9% to P8.14 billion from P6.57 billion a year ago.
Gross revenues declined 2.4% to P27.96 billion from P28.65 billion last year.
On Thursday, shares in the company fell 5.96% to close at P3.47 each. – Shelden Joy Talavera