Brookfield has acquired a 50% stake in Intellihub Group, a smart utility infrastructure-as-a-service company, for around A$1bn (€630m).

The transaction gives the business a total enterprise value of around A$3.4bn, based on equity value of A$2bn and about A$1.4bn in debt, a source told IPE Real Assets.

Brookfield will acquire the interest of a Swiss company, Landis+Gyre. Following the transaction, the Canadian investor will jointly own Intellihub with Pacific Equity Partners (PEP).

Intellihub is the only independent, dedicated multi-utility metering platform in Australia and New Zealand. It counts more than 30 leading utility retailers, including Origin Energy and Aurora Energy, among its clients, and operates more than 1m meters and 1.7m deployments in its pipeline.

Intellihub CEO, Wes Ballantine, said the new strategic relationship with Brookfield would provide additional access to expertise and capital to keep Intellihub at the forefront of Australia’s energy transition as a service provider and innovator.

Ray Neill, Brookfield managing director of infrastructure, described Intellihub as “a highly complementary business” to the group’s local and global utility infrastructure investments.

“We are delighted to become co-owners with PEP in a business that plays a key role in our increasingly complex and digitised energy markets,” he said.

Evan Hattersley, Pacific Equity Partners managing director, said: “Intellihub will benefit from Brookfield’s global expertise and its complementary and growing investments in the Australasian energy and infrastructure sectors.”

Landis+Gyr CEO, Werner Lieberherr said his company looked forward to continuing to partner with Intellihub as a customer into the future.

To read the digital edition of the latest IPE Real Assets magazine click here.