Macquarie and Max Beck sell Active Utilities to Germany’s Patrizia
Macquarie Asset Management and Melbourne’s Beck Corporation have agreed to sell Active Utilities to German real estate asset manager Patrizia.
The agreement to sell the business, worth up to approximately $150 million, was penned on Monday evening, after investment bank Gresham Partners ran a sell-side process on behalf of MAM and Beck, people familiar with the process told The Australian Financial Review.
Essendon Fields (pictured) is a client of Active Utilities, which has agreed a sale to Germany’s Patrizia.
Active Utilities sells end-to-end utilities like electricity, water, facilities management, heating and cooling, telephone and internet offerings and renewable energy sources like electronic vehicle charging, solar and battery storage to multi-tenant properties.
Its strategy – to club tenants together to buy the utilities at wholesale rates, and then sells this to consumers, while managing administrative duties – was a key selling point as investment firms increase their exposure to apartment blocks and other build-to-rent properties.
Melbourne-headquartered construction group Beck is Active Utilities’ largest shareholder. Macquarie’s asset management arm took a 25 per cent stake in the utilities business in 2019.
The Financial Review’s Street Talk column revealed that Beck and MAM had started shopping Active Utilities in April.
The deal with Patrizia comes after the investment company launched an Asia-Pacific infrastructure fund last year. The vehicle, launched in partnership with Japanese conglomerate Mitsui, sought to raise up to $US 1 billion ($1.5 billion). Patrizia had raised $US110 million in December, and intended to raise the rest by the mid-point of next year. If successful, it would be Patrizia’s
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