Full circle: Three years after it sold Sprng to Shell, Actis wants to buy it back

If Actis indeed acquires Sprng, the deal would mark a full circle for the company, which had sold Sprng Energy to Shell three years ago at an enterprise value of $1.55 billion. Sprng Energy has 2.3 gigawatt (GW) of operational renewable energy projects, and 5GW in the pipeline.

Other interested prospective bidders in the yet-to-be-launched sale process, run by Barclays, include the world’s largest alternative asset manager Blackstone, and Canada’s Brookfield Asset Management Inc., the people said on the condition of anonymity.

“Actis is interested in buying back Sprng Energy group from Shell Plc," one of the two people said.

Shell recently sold its 49% stake in green energy firm Cleantech Solar to Singapore’s Keppel Ltd, in a deal having an equity value of around $200 million, Mint reported earlier. Keppel, which already owns the balance 51% stake in the rooftop solar energy platform, plans to sell Cleantech Solar for around $400 million later.

A Shell spokesperson in an emailed response said, “We continuously review our portfolio to deliver upon our strategy. We will not comment on market speculation. Sprng remains focused on safe, reliable operations." Spokespersons for Barclays, Blackstone and Brookfield Asset Management Inc. declined comment.

An Actis spokesperson in an emailed response said, “As a firm, we are unable to comment on deal speculation."

The massive scale of India’s green energy space has attracted the attention of both Indian and global investors. India has an installed renewable energy capacity of around 197GW, and plans to add 50GW more annually to reach 500GW renewable capacity by 2030. The plan is to add 1,800 GW of renewable energy capacity by 2047 and 5,000GW by 2070.

Analysts say inorganic growth is the playbook in the energy space. According to KPMG, it is the top operational priority for organizations to achieve growth over the next three years, as they pursue greater energy security, build digital infrastructure, and scale renewables.

“Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) remain on the agenda—notably for renewables and digital assets—suggesting an increased appetite for inorganic growth," the KPMG 2025 Global Energy, Natural Resources and Chemicals CEO Outlook report released on Tuesday said.

Actis has been an active investor in India’s green energy space. Blupine Energy is its third clean energy firm in the country, following the sale of Ostro Energy to ReNew Power Ventures in 2018 at an enterprise value of $1.5 billion, and the Sprng Energy deal. Also, it is exploring a sale of Blupine Energy in which it has invested $800 million to develop a 4GW renewable energy portfolio. Actis had earlier bought Macquarie Asset Management’s green energy platform Stride Climate Investments with a 371MW portfolio, in a deal having an enterprise value of $325 million.

While Brookfield has been an investor in India’s green energy space, Blackstone has been examining the space and plans to set up a new renewable energy platform in India. Blackstone's investments in India across real estate, healthcare, data centers, technology and private equity space total $50 billion. It was earlier interested in acquiring multinational renewable developer Zelestra’s India operations in a sale transaction code named Project Orange run by JP Morgan, with the deal having an equity and enterprise value of $184 million and $421 million respectively. European alternative asset manager EQT later dropped the sale plan, and instead transferred it to its Asia Pacific infrastructure team headed by Hong Kong based partner Ken Wong as reported by Mint earlier.

Brookfield, which has $1 trillion in assets under management worldwide, has invested $30 billion in India. Its Brookfield Global Transition Fund (BGTF) has committed to invest $1 billion in Avaada Ventures Pvt. Ltd. Also, Brookfield Renewable acquired a controlling stake in rooftop solar power producer CleanMax Enviro Energy Solutions Pvt. Ltd for $360 million. Brookfield Asset Management has also signed an agreement with Mukesh Ambani promoted Reliance Industries Ltd to explore opportunities to manufacture renewable energy and decarbonization equipment in Australia. Brookfield Asset Management earlier this year sold its 1.6GW portfolio to Malaysia’s state-run Petronas unit Gentari Sdn Bhd. In India, its renewable power and transition portfolio comprises over 45GW of wind and solar assets in operation, construction and/or development across platforms.

The interest in the Sprng transaction comes in the backdrop of the Union power ministry directing the state-run procurers—Solar Energy Corp. of India (SECI), NTPC Ltd, NHPC Ltd, and SJVN Ltd—to cancel the awarded contracts by the end of this month where it’s not feasible to sign power purchase agreements (PPAs) and power supply agreements (PSAs) as reported by Mint on Tuesday. Given that an intermediary procurer such as these state-run firms signs PPAs with the project developer after signing back-to-back PSAs with electricity distribution companies (discoms), the inordinate delay in finalizing the PSAs has, in turn, delayed the signing of PPAs. The development assumes significance given that 43.94GW capacity doesn't have PPAs and PSAs in place.

Some of the transactions as reported by Mint include Indian Oil Corp.’s (IOC) renewable energy subsidiary Terra Clean Ltd planning to acquire a 50% stake in renewable energy firm Fourth Partner Energy Pvt. Ltd (FPEL) in a deal having an equity value of around $400 million. Also, Morgan Stanley and Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, Inc. (MUFG) in October launched the sale process of Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP) owned Vena Global Group Pte Ltd’ complete sale of its Indian green energy platform Vena Energy India, in a deal having an enterprise value of around $1 billion. In addition, Sembcorp Industries Ltd, Torrent Power Ltd, INOXGFL Group’ Inox Green Energy Services Ltd, and General Atlantic owned Actis Llp are among half a dozen shortlisted bidders to conduct due diligence to acquire Macquarie Asset Management Green Investment Group (GIG) platform Vibrant Energy in a transaction code named Project Notos having an enterprise value of around $600 million.

Also, initial public offerings (IPOs) are becoming popular, the latest being Avaada Electro, the solar module and cell manufacturing arm of Avaada Group, backed by Thailand's PTT Group and Brookfield, seeking to raise ₹10,000 crore. This comes at a time when several green energy platforms have come with IPOs including state-run NTPC Ltd's green energy arm, NTPC Green Energy Ltd, Waaree Energies, Vikram Solar, ACME Solar, and Premier Energies among others. While; Inox Clean Energy, CleanMax, Juniper Energy have already filed for their public listings; Hero Future Energies and SAEL are among the renewable players which are looking at raising capital through a public offer.