TransCanada Corp.'s Keystone XL Pipeline project, that quintessential manifestation of NAFTA collaboration (Canadian corporation engaged with American government to produce what appeared to be a Mexican telenovela, though ultimately not resulting in any actual trade), is in the past.
Canada’s No. 2 pipeline company’s latest big deal, the agreement to purchase Columbia Pipeline Group Inc. for $13 billion, including as- sumption of $2.8 billion in debt, is expected to beget deals of its own.
To finance the acquisition, TransCanada is seeking buyers for its portfolio of power plants in the Northeast, as well as a minority interest in its Mexican natural gas pipeline business. Moody’s Investor Service assessed the value of these assets at $7.1 billion, Bloomberg reported.
Times have changed since TransCanada purchased one of those properties, the Ravenswood Generating Station in Queens, N.Y., for $2.9 billion in 2008. The plant, which initially went into service in 1963, is fueled by natural gas, fuel oil and kerosene and has a capacity of 2,480 megawatts. Travis Miller, an analyst at Morningstar Inc., told Bloomberg that Ravenswood’s value today was closer to $1.98 billion.
A number of private equity investors could be interested in the power plants, listed by Miller as Blackstone Group LP, D.E. Shaw & Co., Macquarie Group Ltd. and Riverstone Holdings LLC. But while these potential deals develop, TransCanada has lined up lenders and plans to sell about $3.2 billion of shares to complete the purchase in the second half of this year.
Columbia’s stock price rose about 7% from announcement of the deal in mid-March to early April, which diminished the pre- mium TransCanada would pay to about 1.4%. J.P. Morgan esti- mated that Columbia’s midpoint EBITDA will increase by 13.6% to $804 million from 2016 to 2017.
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