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TransAlta: The greening of a coal giant
By resourceINTEL · October 7, 2009 · 6:26 am · Leave a Comment
Coal-fired power producer TransAlta Corp. (TA-T 21.42 0.27 1.28%) has succeeded in buying some solid green credentials by signing a deal to take over wind and hydro powerhouse Canadian Hydro Developers Inc. (KHD-T 5.22 -0.01 -0.19%)
After weeks of promising that it had a better offer poised in the wings, Canadian Hydro decided to opt for TransAlta’s proposal, at a significant premium to the initial take-over offer.
TransAlta will now pay $5.25 per share in cash for each Canadian Hydro share, up from its first bid of $4.55 a share that it made in July.
The price for all the shares will be about $755-million. TransAlta said the total value of the deal, including picking up Canadian Hydro’s debt, is about $1.6-billion.
Once TransAlta absorbs the Canadian Hydro assets – 21 hydro, wind and biomass plants in four provinces – the combined company will generate 22 per cent of its power portfolio from renewable sources.
TransAlta already has a number of renewable power projects in its portfolio, generating about 15 per cent of its total power output.
That’s particularly important for TransAlta, which doesn’t expect to build any new coal plants once its finishes its Keephills 3 plant that is set to open in 2011…read more at The Globe And Mail
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