JSW, Blackstone, Serentica, Brookfield circle Vibrant Energy for acquisition

The first person cited above said Standard Chartered Bank, which is helping the Australia-based investment firm with the sale, has lined up 8-10 large buyers who are willing to examine the asset.

“A large group has been reached out to. Most prominent ones are JSW, Serentica, Brookfield, Blackstone, Actis and Sembcorp,” the person added.

The second person mentioned above said the company has an enterprise value of around $600-700 million or ₹5,000-5,700 crore. Enterprise value includes equity and debt on the books. He added that the equity value of the company stands at around $250-300 million.

Vibrant Energy Holdings is the parent company under which the India portfolio is housed through Aragorn Holding Co. Macquarie Corporate Holdings Pty owns around 90% of Aragorn Holding, while ATN International Inc. holds the remaining stake through various step-down subsidiaries.

Macquarie had first put Vibrant on sale in early 2023, when it had about 132 MW of operational assets. However, over a year later, it shelved the divestment plans due to a valuation mismatch. It re-engaged buyers earlier this year as merger and acquisition activity again picked up pace in the renewable energy sector after a brief lull.

Vibrant Energy mainly develops open-access wind and solar power generation for corporate customers, mainly through the group captive route. Under this mechanism, a corporate client acquires at least 26% equity in a special purpose vehicle set up to develop a renewable energy power plant and signs a 25-year power purchase agreement. Vibrant has such deals with leading cement maker UltraTech and glassmaker Saint-Gobain India. Other key clients include e-commerce major Amazon and data centre company Sify Technologies.

The company has about 1,900 MW of solar and wind projects in India under various stages of completion. About 235 MW of this was operational as of December 2024, while 476 MW was under construction, as per a credit report by Care Ratings. The remaining capacity was in the pipeline.

This puts the Vibrant Energy transaction in the league of other significant acquisitions in India’s renewable energy market. For instance, JSW Energy in December acquired O2 Power, which has about 4,700 MW of assets, including those under development, at an enterprise value of ₹12,468 crore. As of FY 2025, O2 Power had operational assets of about 1,343 MW.

Earlier this year, ONGC NTPC Green Pvt. Ltd acquired the 4,112-MW platform Ayana Renewable Power for an enterprise value of ₹19,500 crore. The company had about 2,123 MW of operational assets.

Separately, Actis, one of the contenders for acquiring Vibrant Energy, recently acquired SunSource Energy in India, according to two people in the know. SunSource is a renewable energy portfolio company of Dutch multinational SHV Energy. It operates about 250 MW of solar projects in India and has another 330 MW under development.

Brookfield, Macquarie and Serentica declined to comment on the deal.

Actis, Blackstone, Sembcorp, JSW and SunSource spokespersons did not respond to emailed queries.

Sydney-based Macquarie, which owns Vibrant Energy through a holding company in Singapore, has more than 90 GW of renewable energy portfolio under development across over 25 markets globally.