Mergers and acquisitions in asia pacific electricity market in 1999-2001.

Abstract

In the Asia Pacific electricity market, there were overall 71 mergers and acquisitions in the 1999-2001 time period. The total value of these disclosed deals exceeded USD 11.5 billion. Among others, there were four large, over USD 1 billion acquisitions, all of which involved electricity assets in Australia. Up until 2001, U.S. and Hong Kong companies have been the most active buyers in this region. The most purchased asset group during the three year period was generation assets, followed by supply and distribution assets (see Chapter 3 for explanation of different kinds of electricity assets). In the 1999-2001 time period, there were three distinct trends in the mergers and acquisitions: privatisation of electricity companies in Australia, sell-off of electricity assets by industrial conglomerates, especially in South Korea, and restructuring within Chinese power companies.