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Origin Energy (ASX:ORG) boosts energy services with buyout of WINconnect

ASX News, Energy
ASX:ORG      MCAP $16.88B
20 December 2021 09:16 (AEST)
Origin Energy (ASX:ORG) - Chief Executive Officer, Frank Calabria

Source: Origin Energy

Origin Energy (ORG), through one of its subsidiaries, is to acquire WINconnect as it continues to target growth in its community energy services (CES) business.

As part of the acquisition, Origin has also agreed to certain amendments to its master services agreement with Intellihub, majority owned by Pacific Equity Partners along with WINconnect, in which Intellihub provides metering services to Origin.

The amendments include an increase in meter volumes, with Intellihub to acquire both Origin’s and WINconnect’s electricity embedded network meters.

The transactions are inter-conditional with an equity refinancing concurrently being undertaken by Intellihub and a net amount payable by Origin of $42.4 million post-tax.

The acquisition will add 87,000 embedded electricity network and serviced hot water customers to Origin with a pipeline of 36,000 further contracted apartments.

The majority of WINconnect customers are in Victoria and New South Wales, with a smaller portion in Queensland, South Australia and Western Australia.

Origin CEO Frank Calabria said WINconnect aligns to its retail strategy to expand its existing presence.

“Since 2018, Origin’s CES business has experienced strong growth with customer accounts increasing by 78 per cent,” he said.

“This transaction allows us to add considerable scale to our customer base, while providing further upside potential through the sale of a broader suite of behind the meter products and services to CES customers.”

With completion targeted for the first half of the 2022 calendar year, Origin will have 367,000 CES customers located across all mainland states and territories.

Origin Energy shares are down 1.2 per cent, trading at $5.04 at 1:10 pm AEDT.

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