One of the World's Largest Offshore Wind Developers Could Be for Sale

Australia's Macquarie has engaged advisors for a potential sale of its subsidiary Corio Generation, one of the world's largest offshore-wind developers, two sources with knowledge of the matter said on Tuesday.

Corio oversees a 30-gigawatt pipeline of offshore wind projects spanning Europe, Asia-Pacific, and the Americas. It includes 5 GW of projects across the UK such as West of Orkney in Scotland and Outer Dowsing off the east coast of England.

Macquarie plans to gauge interest from a handful of strategic and financial investors later this year for a full or minority stake sale, said the people, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

Spokespeople at the Australian asset manager and Corio declined to comment.

The shift away from fossil fuels has triggered increased investment in offshore wind farms, which yield higher power output than onshore installations.

However, escalating material costs, significant infrastructure requirements, supply chain disruptions, and design flaws are adding to costs of building the projects.

The valuation of Corio will hinge on how potential investors perceive the company's projects, which require billions of dollars in investment to become operational, according to one of the sources.

The potential sale follows Macquarie's 2022 agreement with the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan to facilitate the development of some of Corio's pipeline.

The Australian investment firm will continue deploying capital in the offshore wind sector via its managed funds, one of the sources said. In July, its funds took full control of the 194-MW Lynn and Inner Dowsing projects in the United Kingdom.

(Reuters - Reporting by Andres Gonzalez, editing by Emelia Sithole-Matarise)