Dayton Power & Light snapped up by AES for US$4.7bn

Dayton Power & Light Inc (DPL) and its subsidiaries are to become part of AES Corp, a global power company. Under the terms of the deal, AES will pay US$30/share for all of DPL’s 116m outstanding shares for a total of around US$3.5bn. AES will also take on DPL’s debts, taking the total value of the deal to US$4.7bn. The transaction is expected to close in six to nine months, subject to approval from DPL shareholders, the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio (PUCO), the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and an anti-trust review. AES has committed bridge financing in place from Bank of America Merrill Lynch, which also acted as financial advisor for the acquisition. Under the terms of the deal, DPL will keep its name and Dayton headquarters for at least two years after the merger.

“The DPL acquisition is expected to be value and earnings accretive, benefiting from the regional scale provided by our nearby utility business at Indianapolis Power & Light Company,” said AES Corp Chief Executive Paul Hanrahan.

Via its subsidiaries, DPL owns and operates around 3.8GW of generating capacity of which 2.8GW are coal-fired plants for baseload generation and 1GW are natural gas and diesel peaking units. By way of comparison, AES has 40.5GW of generating capacity. DPL sells its power to customers in a 6000 square mile area of West Central Ohio.