UniSuper seeks exit at Victorian desalination plant; taps Barrenjoey

afr.com:

Victorian desalination plant’s largest shareholder, the $124 billion superannuation investor UniSuper, is ready to call its time on the register after nearly 15 years.

Victoria’s Desalination Plant in Wontagghi. Justin McManus

Street Talk understands UniSuper has mandated Barrenjoey to find a buyer for its 30 per cent-plus stake in the plant, which can pump up to a third of Melbourne’s water needs to its dams during droughts by purifying seawater.

Sources said that in the first instance, the superannuation fund was expected to test appetite among the plant’s existing shareholders: Korea Development Bank, Kookmin Bank, Macquarie Group, Dexus, Suez Water and Itotchu.

It was not known if UniSuper wanted to part with its stake in full or just trim its holding. A spokesman for the superannuation fund, which is also an investor at the Sydney equivalent, declined to comment.

The plant was commissioned by the Victorian Government in 2007, when a drought and Melbourne’s falling water storage levels sent bureaucrats and politicians on a hunt for alternative sources of water supply. At the time, it was the country’s biggest seawater desalination plant in development, with a goal of churning out up to 150 gigalitres of water annually – with room to expand to 200 gigalitres – to Melbourne, Geelong, South Gippsland and Western Port towns.

A consortium including Macquarie Group, Thiess Pty Ltd, Suez Environment and Degremont SA, won a 30-year concession to build, finance and run the plant under a public-private partnership model. They brought in other equity investors, including UniSuper with about 26 per cent, Samsung, Itotchu and HSBC. The superannuation fund brought a further 4.55 per cent in 2017, taking it to nearly 31 per cent