Japanese energy giant gets FIRB tick for Genex bid, lays out plans for big wind project

The billion-dollar Genex Power takeover by Japanese energy giant J-Power is ready to be presented to shareholders, after the deal got the tick of approval from the foreign investment watchdog.

The Foreign Investment Review Board (FIRB) was the final regulatory hurdle Genex and J-Power had to jump through before the scheme of arrangement goes to a shareholder vote on 16 July.

Genex, the last listed company on the ASX specialising in wind, solar and storage, agreed to J-Power’s 27.5 cents a share offer in April, after a month of tussling over the price. The offer values Genex’s equity at $380 million and the company at more than $1 billion on an enterprise value basis.

The final hurdle is for shareholders to vote on the scheme of approval at a meeting in July. If they vote no, J-Power has an alternative 27 cents a share on-market offer in the wings. 

The deal is a 10 per cent premium to the offer made by Scott Farquhar’s Skip Capital last year, which ended up being rejected. But J-Power’s position as a 7.72 per cent shareholder and major funder of Genex’s big expansion projects has made this takeover seem more inevitable. 

EPBC application for Kidston wind farm is in

Genex, meanwhile, has applied for permission under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act (EPBC) to go ahead with the wind segment of its flagship Kidston renewable hub.

The company is building the 250 megawatt (MW), eight-hour Kidston pumped hydro project in norther Queensland at the site of a former open pit gold mine, and it will be the first to be built in Australia in 40 years and the first ever by a private company. 

The hub includes a 50 MW solar farm, which is finished and operating, and plans for a 258 MW wind farm which Genex hopes to start operations in 2026. 

The proposal is for up to 43 six MW turbines, with a blade tip height of 212.5m, over a land area of 883 hectares. 

The wind farm will connect to the Aurumfield Powerlink substation via a new 275 kilovolt (kV) overhead transmission line.

The latest EPBC application is not the first Genex has filed for the Kidston project: a second solar farm and transmission line were named controlled actions under the Act in 2018 and 2022 respectively. 

The second 270 MW solar project however is now on the backburner after a 15 year offtake deal with Queensland government-owned Stanwell Corp in December 2023, for half of the wind farm’s output. 

Genex has been expanding its portfolio outside the Kidston project for some time. It also owns the 50MW / 100MWh Bouldercombe big battery and is developing the 2 gigawatt (GW) Bulli Creek solar and battery project in south Queensland.