New Zealand:

Contact Energy to Become Independent Company (Scoop.co.nz)

Major New Zealand geothermal energy producer Contact Energy will become an independently governed company for the first time since privatization in 1999 after cornerstone shareholder Origin Energy, based in Sydney, agreed to sell its 53.1 percent stake to "a broad range of Australian, New Zealand and international equity market" investors.

The transactions end Contact's 16 years under the effective control of a foreign-owned majority shareholder following the original sale of a 40 percent shareholding to Edison Mission Energy of California in 1999, in the first partial privatization of a state-owned electricity company. Contact will also seek a dual-listing on the Australian Stock Exchange, which it abandoned in the mid-2000s.

Contact Energy runs the 166 MW Te Mihi, the 132 MW Wairakei, the 38 MW Poihipi, the 28 MW Te Huka and the 65 MW Ohaaki geothermal power stations.

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