Macquarie acquires Germany's second largest gas TSO
Australia's Macquarie Asset Management announced on October 29 it had acquired Germany's second largest gas transmission system operator (TSO) Thyssengas from DIF and EDF for an undisclosed sum.
Thyssengas operates a 4,400-km underground pipeline network that supplies gas to around 50 municipal distribution centres, 160 industrial customers and seven gas storage systems across Germany's industrial heartland of North Rhine-Westphalia. Macquarie said the TSO should play a key role in Germany's phase-out of nuclear and coal-fired power generation, by introducing more low-carbon gases to its customers in the region.
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"Thyssengas is situated at the centre of Germany’s industrial region and services many hard-to-abate sectors," Macquarie Asset Management's managing director, Hilko Schomerus, commented. "With a strong reliance on conventional energy, limited renewable energy resources, and strong gas network connectivity, greener gases such as low-carbon hydrogen present a strong energy alternative for local businesses seeking to decarbonise."
Macquarie is acquiring Thyssengas via its Macquarie Super Core Infrastructure Fund. The investor brings past experience to the table, as it was the owner of Thyssengas between 2011 and 2016 through another of its managed infrastructure funds. DIF and EDF Invest are understood to have paid somewhere between €600mn and €700mn ($700-817mn) for the asset in 2016.
None of the companies involved in the transaction have said when its closure is expected. Sources told Reuters in June that Thyssengas had been put up for sale.