Oz AGL Energy Acquires Click Energy
Australian energy and gas retailer AGL Energy has agreed to acquire 100% of the shares of Click Energy Group Holdings, a wholly owned subsidiary of ASX-listed Amaysim Australia, for A$115mn (US$85mn), AGL said on August 31. The transaction does not include Amaysim’s mobile customer base or business.
Click operates the Click Energy and Amaysim brands in energy. It sells electricity to retail customers in New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland and South Australia and gas to retail customers in New South Wales and Victoria. Click also owns a utilities connection service provider, On The Move, which connects customers to various utilities including energy and telecommunications.
AGL CEO, Brett Redman, said the proposed acquisition, which follows the recent acquisitions of Perth Energy and Southern Phone, aligns with the company’s growth strategy and leverages the investment made in customer service platforms.
“The purchase of the Click Energy business and its connection service provider, On The Move, is another step towards AGL achieving our target of 4.5mn customer services by 2024,” Redman said. “The acquisition includes approximately 215,000 energy services to customers, increasing AGL’s total services provided to almost 4.2mn services to homes and businesses across Australia and building on the strong growth achieved in FY20.”
Some 97% of Click's customers use online billing and AGL said this is a good fit with its own business which is expanding digital customer services.
“With AGL’s cost to serve already below that of Click Energy’s, we believe we will be able to unlock further value as these customers share in further benefits from our continuing investment in automation, optimisation and digitisation,” Redman added.
AGL said it expects the acquisition to be modestly accretive to the company’s underlying earnings. The acquisition will be financed from AGL’s existing debt facilities. Completion of the acquisition is expected to occur on or by September 30 this year, subject to the satisfaction of a customary condition precedent, the company said.