Australian Power Company Rejects Takeover Offer From Environmentalist Billionaire

Australia’s biggest carbon emitter, AGL, said on Monday it had rejected a takeover bid from billionaire environmental activist Mike Cannon-Brookes, who wants to close the company’s coal-fired plants.

AGL, Australia’s largest power company, said its board over the weekend rejected a joint offer of $6 a share from Cannon-Brookes, founder of technology firm Atlassian, and Canadian giant Brookfield Asset Management.

The firm said in a statement to the Australian stock exchange that the purchase offer was “well below the fair value of the company.”

This is the second offer Cannon-Brookes and Brookfield have made for AGL, with a plan to close coal-fired power plants 15 years ahead of schedule.

Cannon-Brookes commented “with great sadness” that the recently rejected offer would be the last he would make with the Canadian firm to acquire AGL.

“Our route was the largest decarbonization project in the world,” Cannon-Brookes wrote on Twitter.

Australia is one of the world’s largest exporters of gas and coal, but the country has also suffered the effects of climate change, with increasing droughts, wildfires and the bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef.

mmc/djw/jfx/mas/atm

–