Power Assets sells down stake in its Hong Kong electricity unit to Qatar sovereign wealth fund

Power Assets Holdings, an international utilities firm controlled by tycoon Li Ka-shing, has sold a 16.5 per cent stake in HK Electric Investments (HKEI) to Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund for HK$7.68 billion.

Power Assets will remain HKEI’s largest shareholder with a 33.37 per cent stake after the sale.

Together with a 3.37 per cent stake separately acquired earlier from Cheung Kong Infrastructure Holdings, Qatar Investment Authority will hold a 19.9 per cent stake in HKEI.

“As we said at the time of HKEI’s initial public offering exercise, our intent has always been to maintain our stake in HKEI at between 30 per cent and 49.9 per cent,” said Power Assets chairman Canning Fok Kin-ning in a statement. “Placement of this 16.53 per cent stake is both consistent with that intent and allows us the opportunity to work closely with an important new strategic partner.”

Power Assets early last year spun off HKEI as a separate Hong Kong-listed trust company, and sold a 50.1 per cent of then wholly-owned Hongkong Electric – the monopoly electricity supplier to Hong Kong Island and Lamma Island - to the trust.

Power Assets management said at the time it will seek to buy assets in developed markets to plug a profit gap after it the stake sale in the Hong Kong electricity business.