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| Disposal of AEI’s Latin American assets (Ashmore owns 55% of AEI) | |
| Value | Equity consideration of $4.7 billion paid in cash |
| Date | January 19 2011 |
| Advisers | Itaú BBA and Goldman Sachs advised AEI |
| return to the Latin America Deals of the Year index | |
AEI was a unique deal: a disposal process that enabled the owner to maximize the value of its Latin American assets. The company is an energy infrastructure business with assets in power distribution, power generation, natural gas transportation and natural gas distribution. The company is majority-owned by private equity company Ashmore Group, which had been looking to sell its Latin American assets in an initial public offering, twice failing to price despite lowering the valuation from its 2009 attempt of $3.9 billion to $3.2 billion in 2010.
The complexity of the group of holdings was the main reason why the IPO route ultimately failed: the rating agencies and potential investors needed to do individual assessment on the 30 assets – including regulatory assessments of each of the seven Latin American countries in which they operated.
