AIG Continues Sell Off of Clean Energy Assets as part of Restructuring
On Monday, an investment unit of the embattled American International Group (AIG) sold its 42.5 percent stake in a 120 megawatt Texas wind farm to industrial conglomerate Sumitomo, marking the Japanese company’s first foray into the U.S. clean energy market.
Japanese news service Nikkei reports that Sumitomo paid about $100 million for its stake in the Stanton wind farm. General Electric holds another 42.5 percent in the project and Invenergy, the U.S. independent developer, the remaining 15 percent.
Back in March, at the peak of the bonus scandal (for more on that see here) AIG sold three Spanish solar power plants with a combined output of 35 megawatts and an enterprise value of €300 million ($427 million) to HG Capital, a listed private equity fund.
Motivating the Texas purchase for Sumitomo is the growth prospect of the U.S. market, which could generate as much as 20 percent of its electricity from wind by 2020.
Other Japanese companies with U.S. projects include Eurus Energy Holdings, which is developing a 63 megawatt facility in northern Oregon expected to begin operating at the end of the year. The company, a unit of Tokyo Electric Power and Toyota Tsusho, already operates eight wind farms in the U.S.
