Billionaire Warren Buffett' $4bn swoop for full control of energy business
Investment tycoon's Berkshire Hathaway Energy snaps up 8% minority stake
The energy unit of Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, the second largest US clean power owner, will pay about $3.9bn for the minority 8% stake held by the family of a late board member.
BHE bought the stake with $2.37bn in cash, exchange of a certain number of Berkshire Class B shares for 1.6 million of its shares held by the Scott family, and issuance of a $600 million, one-year note.
On 1 January, BHE’s competitive energy business and electric utilities owned 14.81GW of clean power capacity, second only to industry pacesetter NextEra Energy. This included 12.82GW of wind, 1.75GW of grid-scale solar, and 233MW of storage.
Those utilities include MidAmerican Energy, a major wind owner and operator; NVEnergy, the dominant power supplier in Nevada, and PacifiCorp, the largest western power company outside California.
BHE sprawling operations also include natural gas pipelines in the US; Northern Powergrid utility in the UK; AltaLink, the largest regulated transmission company in the Canadian province of Alberta, and HomeServices of America, one of the nation’s largest residential real estate brokerage companies.
Abel, who formerly led Berkshire’s energy business, is expected to succeed Buffett, arguably the world’s most successful value investor in the past 75 years. Buffett, 94, has no plans to retire.
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