Brookfield to form renewable energy giant

Brookfield Asset Management and its wholly owned subsidiary Brookfield Renewable Power are planning to merge their power generating assets to form one of the largest renewable power businesses in the world.

The merger would see the creation of a entirely new entity called Brookfield Renewable Energy Partners L.P (BREP), which would boast some $13 billion worth of assets that include 168 hydroelectric generating stations and two wind farms - a further three wind farms and four hydro facilities are currently under construction. The new additions to BREP’s portfolio will grow the aggregate capacity of the portfolio to 4,800 MW and enable an average annual generation of more than 18,000 GWh. The portfolio will be diversified across ten power markets in Canada, the United States and Brazil.

“The combination of these two portfolios creates one of the world's largest pure-play renewable power platforms,” said Brookfield’s power operations, Chief Executive, Richard Legault. “This exciting new company will rank among the very best renewable businesses globally in terms of its quality of assets, scale of operating platform, geographic diversification, access to capital, and global reach. We intend to utilize this entity to grow in the renewable energy business globally,” added Legault.

Brookfield added that transaction would be accretive for the Fund's unitholders and is expected to increase their annual distributable cash per unit by an average of 10 percent during the next five years.

“In the nearly 12 years since its formation, the Fund, with Brookfield Power as its manager, has earned a reputation as one of the most successful Canadian income trusts generating total annual unitholder returns in excess of 15%,” commented Andre Bureau, Chairman of the Board of the Fund. “We are excited to present this transaction to the Fund's security holders as it increases the sustainability and amount of distributions and provides them with significantly greater growth prospects.”