On March 2, 2026, AES Corporation announced a definitive agreement to be taken private by a consortium led by Global Infrastructure Partners (part of BlackRock) and EQT AB, with CalPERS and Qatar Investment Authority as co-investors. Shareholders will receive $15.00 per share in cash, a 40% premium to the pre- announcement price, implying an equity value of $10.7 billion and an enterprise value of approximately $33.4 billion including assumed debt. The transaction is structured as 100% equity-financed, with no incremental debt added at closing.
We selected the AES take-private transaction as the subject of this report for two converging reasons.
- Take-private deals have become one of the defining trends in private equity over recent years: as Private Equity International noted in its November 2025 analysis “The Rise and Rise of Take-Privates”, short- term and increasingly passive public markets are often a poor fit for major capital-intensive transformations, particularly those driven by decarbonisation and AI, precisely the dynamics that define AES’s current trajectory.
- At the same time, renewed tensions around the Strait of Hormuz have once again exposed the fragility of fossil fuel supply chains and sharpened the strategic case for energy independence through renewables. As geopolitical risk reprices, capital is rotating back into clean energy assets with long-term contracted cash flows, and AES sits squarely in that category.
Our position: In our view, the deal is well-priced and strategically sound for the acquiring consortium. AES enters the transaction carrying the characteristics of a compelling take-private candidate: a portfolio of long- duration infrastructure assets underpinned by contracted revenues, a clear and credible energy transition strategy, and a financial profile that public markets have consistently undervalued. Our DCF analysis yields an enterprise value of $39.2 billion (Fig. 0.1), slightly above the deal price of $33.4 billion, while our trading multiples analysis places the implied EV even higher, between $53 billion and $70 billion depending on the metric used. Taken together, the evidence suggests that the consortium is acquiring AES at a meaningful discount to intrinsic value, with the upside unlocked by patient, long-term private ownership and access to capital that public markets were no longer prepared to provide on acceptable terms.
Prepared by Beatrice Alemanni, Co-Head of the Private Equity Division, together with Anisa Anaya, Anthony Bitar, Vanessa Kouri, Tommaso Lubciz and Lorenzo Monsante