NRG Energy sells south central power generating business to Cleco Corporate Holdings for $1.0 billion
Client(s) NRG Energy, Inc.
Jones Day represented NRG Energy, Inc. in the sale to Cleco Corporate Holdings LLC (Cleco) of NRG’s South Central business for a total purchase price and cash proceeds of $1.0 billion, subject to certain adjustments. The South Central business owns and operates a 3,555 MW portfolio of generation assets consisting of 225 MW Bayou Cove, 430 MW Big Cajun-I, 1,461 MW Big Cajun-II, 1,263 MW Cottonwood, and 176 MW Sterlington, and serves a customer base of cooperatives, municipalities and regional utilities under load contracts. As part of the transaction, NRG is further optimizing value through entering into a sale leaseback agreement for its 1,263 MW Cottonwood plant, a highly efficient CCGT natural gas-fired combined cycle plant, through May 2025. This transaction is one of three sales transactions that also include the disposition to Global Infrastructure Partners of NRG's interest in NRG Yield, Inc. (NYLD), its renewables platform and its ROFO pipeline, and the dropdown to NYLD of its Buckthorn Solar and Carlsbad projects. These deals resulted in the receipt by NRG of approximately $2.8 billion in cash proceeds and the removal from the company of approximately $7 billion of debt.
