A consortium involving one of Hong Kong’s wealthiest businessmen is to acquire the north’s biggest gas distributor.
Phoenix Energy is being sold to three companies associated with billionaire Li Ka-Shing’s CK Group in a deal valued at around HK$7.4 billion (£760 million).
Details of the acquisition emerged in a filling by Hong Kong-based Power Assets Holdings this week, one of three companies involved in the deal along with CK Infrastructure Holdings and CK Asset Holdings.
CKA and CKI will each hold a 40% stake, with PAH taking the rest.
Phoenix Energy is jointly owned by a pension fund associated with Ulster Bank’s parent NatWest, and the Utilities Trust of Australia.
They each have a 50% stake after acquiring the company and its assets in 2013.
The gas distributor was originally launched by British Gas plc in 1996, following the completion of the Scotland Northern Ireland Pipeline.
Phoenix Energy now operates the largest natural gas distribution network in the north.
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There are around 250,000 customers on the network, which runs from Larne to east Down and incorporates Greater Belfast.
The transaction is expected to be completed by the end of this month.
Victor Li Tzar-kuoi, eldest son of Li Ka-Shing and chairman of CK Infrastructure and CK Asset said: “We are very happy to acquire another quality asset characterised by stable returns.”
Phoenix Energy joins a considerable portfolio of international assets belonging to the CK Group and its associated entities.
Outside Hong Kong, it has investments in the UK, Australia, New Zealand, China, the United States, Canada, Thailand and the Netherlands.
Li Ka-Shing, who was knighted in 2000, also owns Superdrug.
