Canadian pensions said to be entertaining a sale of Australia’s Flow Power

Canadian pension fund OPTrust is seeking an exit from Australian clean-energy retailer and developer Flow Power, according to a report by The Australian Financial Review’s ‘Street Talk’, an investment and corporate deal-making reporting column, that frequently flags major renewable asset sales and deals before formal market announcements.

The CAD 27 billion (USD 20 billion) fund is said to have engaged Lazard Australia to test market appetite for an outright sale alongside company founder Matthew van der Linden, eight years after acquiring its majority holding.

The column said:

“Lazard has mailed out a five-page teaser to prospective buyers, telling them Flow Power printed $20 million earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation [EBITDA] and $58 million gross margin in the year to June 30.“

That Flow Power reported AUD 20 million (USD 13.3 million) in EBITDA and AUD 58 million in gross margin for the financial year ending June 30. While initially established as an energy retailer matching commercial and industrial users with corporate power purchase agreements, it has steadily evolved into a vertically integrated distributed energy provider.

Flow Power currently holds 41 MW of operational battery energy storage systems (BESS), including grid-scale units co-located at its regional solar plants, including the Berri project in South Australia. A further ~100 MW of storage assets is under active construction, with a 1.4 GW development pipeline spanning front-of-meter batteries, wind, solar, and hybrid facilities across Australia’s National Electricity Market (NEM).

Retail contracts are increasingly serving as a natural hedge for storage developers in Australia. Flow Power’s proprietary kWatch demand-response platform and its flexible BESS buffer are also assets.

Beyond its 6,200 commercial and industrial connections and 8,200 mass-market retail accounts, Flow Power’s behind-the-meter arm, Solar Choice, generated AUD 8.7 million in gross margin over the year, integrating commercial rooftop solar, on-site storage, and heat pumps.