Atlantic Power – after the buyout

It’s always interesting to see what happens to companies after they get bought out. It makes you wonder whether the price you are receiving is well-deserved or not.

In the case of Atlantic Power, they were bought out for approximately US$270 million plus the assumption of debt (not a trivial amount, roughly US$560 million).

I was just doing some checking up and noticed that Innergex bought the Curtis Palmer hydroelectric project. They paid US$318 million, which implies an EBITDA multiple of about 7.5x.

This was the gem of Atlantic Power.

I also notice they inked a deal with New Jersey to decommission their only coal plant (a 40% economic interest) at Chambers effective May 2022, where they would have received a capitalized value of the remaining power purchase agreement. This PPA was set to expire in 2024. I’m not sure exactly how much the payout was, but I would estimate it would have been around US$80-90 million.

This leaves 19 projects remaining, consisting of biomass, natural gas and hydro generators.

Atlantic Power was a very interesting company to analyze, and run by top-grade management that I would follow in a heartbeat if they decided to manage another public company.