Engie has acquired a major stake in Kiwi Power, buying out founders Yoav Zingher and Ziko Abram.
The French-owned utility acquired a share in 2015 via its New Ventures corporate venture capital company.
A New Ventures spokesperson confirmed that it has increased its stake “to just under 50%”, making it Kiwi’s largest single shareholder (though not the majority shareholder, as an earlier version of this article stated, the companies insist).
The two founders have exited the company as a result, having built Kiwi from the ground up since 2009. Yuval Tamir, former chief operating officer, will become interim CEO. The board is likely appoint a permanent CEO in the coming months.
The deal may ultimately lead to Engie acquiring full ownership of the company, with the remaining shares held by private equity.
In a statement, Kiwi said the deal “marks the start of the next phase of growth for KiWi Power, backed by its other major shareholders who have supported the company since its inception”.
Engie now hopes to leverage Kiwi’s flexibility platform across its sizeable global footprint.
Kiwi currently provides DSR platform services for other energy companies.
The deal follows several recent acquisitions of aggregators by utilities. Centrica bought Restore last November for £62m. That followed Enel’s acquisition of Enernoc in a deal that valued the company at £236m.
Engie’s move means that there are very few aggregators left in market that are not yet owned by or tied to a large utility.
Kiwi Power made a loss after tax of £364k for the year to 31 December 2017 on turnover of £6.4m. It is a subsidiary of General Electricity Holdings Ltd, which made a loss after tax of £2.4m.
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