There is life after Babcock & Brown, just look at Alinta Energy (AKA Babcock & Brown Power)
The power station company has a stream of admirers looking for a bargain and to exploit the company’s usual need for more cash to start cutting its $2.7 billion of debt.
In fact it needs to find around $250 million by March next year to keep its bankers happy.
As in the past, it doesn’t have that sort of money and needs to raise cash from somewhere.
Alinta needs the help of its banks to raise this cash, so the company says it wants to change some of the covenants (restrictions) on its debt for the period to March 2011 to allow it to continue what it calls its "deleveraging".
The only way Alinta can ‘deleverage’ itself is by selling some of its power stations to raise the cash to meet the demands of its banks for repayment.
It needs the agreement of the banks to do that because if it sells stations (or a station) then cash flow and earnings will come under pressure, as will asset cover.
So after media reports suggested it could be seeing some takeover interest, Alinta revealed that it had received indicative bids for all or some of its businesses.
The securities jumped 51% at one stage to a day’s high of 6.8c, before they eased to close up 35%, or 1.6c, at 6.1c.
Alinta, which owns 12 power stations across Australia and New Zealand, confirmed that it had received a number of non-binding bids.
The company didn’t mention any names, but media reports claimed interested parties include Origin Energy and BHP Billiton.
The reports said Origin had linked with local pipeline operator APA Group and Japan’s Marubeni to submit an offer for all 12 power stations.
Besides BHP, the media reports claimed that Saudi Arabia’s Acwa Power International, French utility GDF Suez, and Canadian investor ATCO were interested. But they were not confirmed by any other sources.
In its statement yesterday Alinta said that it "continues to assess deleveraging options for the business, including asset sale and capital management options, with a focus on maximising total enterprise value.
"As part of this process, a number of indicative, non-binding, confidential bids have been received.
"These include bids for both whole of business and parts of the business. No decision has been made on whether any of these options will be pursued.
"Pending an outcome on Alinta Energy’s assessment of these options, Alinta Energy has not yet implemented the equitisation of intra-group loans approved by securityholders in February 2010.
"Alinta Energy will continue to keep the market informed on the status of its deleveraging options consistent with its continuous disclosure obligations.
"Alinta Energy has made a request to its banking syndicate for the variation of covenants for the period to 31 March 2011, as under some trading scenarios, these covenants could come under pressure and frustrate the deleveraging activities.
"Alinta Energy is not in default of its loan covenants or any other financial obligations.
"Last evening debtwire.com (a subscription service) indicated that Alinta Energy has threatened to place the group into voluntary administration on failure to receive the covenant variations requested. Alinta Energy has been working closely and co-operatively with its banking syndicate and is not considering the appointment of a voluntary administrator."
(Alinta didn’t deny that it had made the threat.)
Alinta needs to repay a minimum $250 million by March 2011 under new terms struck last December.
Alinta yesterday also confirmed its financial year 2010 guidance for normalised earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation of $288 million.
No mention of a net profit. There won’t be.
