Australian energy retailer Origin Energy has signed an agreement to divest its metering business, Acumen, to intelliHUB for A$267m (about $202m).
Image: A Landis+Gyr’s smart electricity meter. Photo: courtesy of Fungai A. Mapondera/Wikipedia.
intelliHUB is a company to be jointly owned by Pacific Equity Partners and smart meter provider Landis+Gyr.
The Acumen business includes the existing management and servicing of an already deployed 170,000 meters. It also has a material, long-term contract with Origin Energy for the rollout of additional smart meters across Australia.
Landis+Gyr said that the acquisition of Acumen business wil allow the combined entity to immediately rollout a significant proportion of the estimated eight million smart meters to be deployed across NSW, Queensland, South Australia and the Australian Capital Territory.
Origin CEO Frank Calabria said, “We are pleased to deliver on our commitment to sell and realize value from Acumen, a business that we’ve grown from scratch over the past eight years to now having more than 170,000 meters under management.
“A very competitive long-term metering contract with Acumen, enhanced by Landis+Gyr’s global expertise in digital meter technology, deployment and management services, will support our digital-first strategy of using data and insights to enhance the customer experience.”
Upon completion of the transaction, which is expected on or prior to 30 June 2018, intelliHUB will comprise Acumen and Landis+Gyr’s existing Australian meter service activities.
Landis+Gyr CEO Richard Mora said: “We have been investing for several years in our products and solutions for Australia and the partnership with intelliHUB will be crucial to giving the Australian market access to the best of our global smart metering products, solutions and services technologies.”
Landis+Gyr said it will contribute both cash and its intelliHUB business with combined equity value of up to A$75m.
As per the joint ownership structure, intelliHUB will benefit from PEP’s experience in business development to deliver long-term growth.
Additionally, the business will retain both the intelliHUB and Acumen brands and will focus on all facets of residential, consumer and industrial, embedded networks and solar metering services across Australia and New Zealand.