Brookfield is in talks to acquire the French renewable energy company Neoen

Brookfield Asset Management Ltd. is in exclusive talks to buy a majority stake in French renewable energy provider Neoen, with the offer valuing the company’s shares at 6.1 billion euros ($9 billion) and including a plan to turn the company into a private company.

Brookfield is offering 39.85 euros ($59.07) a share to buy 53.32 percent of Neoen from current owners, which include billionaire Jacques Veyrat’s Impala SAS, Fonds Stratégique de Participations (FSP) and an investment vehicle owned by the CEO and Noeen CEO Xavier Barbaro. Financing for the offering will be provided by a subsidiary of Toronto-based asset manager Brookfield Renewable, as well as institutional co-investors such as Singapore sovereign fund Temasek Holdings Ltd.

The offer price represents a premium of 26.9% to Neoen’s last closing price, according to a Brookfield news release issued early this morning.

The transaction requires consultations with employee representative bodies and regulatory approvals, which Brookfield expects will be obtained by the fourth quarter of this year. Assuming success, Brookfield will then make an all-cash tender offer to purchase all of Neoen’s remaining shares and convertible notes with the goal of taking the company private, likely in the first quarter of 2025.

The Neoen takeover bid, which would be one of the largest take-private deals in Europe so far this year, signals an ambitious plan that will expand Brookfield’s footprint in Europe and Australia, where it is currently relatively smaller, and help it meet growing demand from large corporations for renewable energy. Paris-based Neoen, founded in 2008 and went public in 2018, has more than eight gigawatts of renewable energy capacity operating or under construction, including the largest solar farm in France, the largest wind farm in Finland and two major energy storage plants in Australia.

“The acquisition of Neoen further strengthens Brookfield’s global scale while diversifying into key renewable energy markets and expanding its expertise in battery storage technologies,” Connor Teskey, general manager of renewable energy and transformation at Brookfield Asset Management, said in a statement.

Brookfield plans to pay the largest share of the acquisition price through its newest flagship renewable energy fund, Brookfield Global Transition Fund II, which is headed by Mr. Teskey and Brookfield Chairman Mark Carney, a former central banker. Through February, the fund had raised an initial $10 billion and is expected to be significantly larger than Brookfield’s first transition fund, which raised $15 billion.

Brookfield Renewable, the largest investor in BGTF II, plans to invest as much as €500 million ($741 million) in the acquisition.

“Our Board fully welcomes this transaction,” Mr. Barbaro said in a statement.

Neoen’s management board hired the French financial consulting company Finexsi as an independent expert to evaluate the transaction.

Brookfield is investing billions of dollars in renewable energy and is banking heavily on enterprise demand to support growing networks of energy-intensive data centers that will underpin artificial intelligence and cloud computing technologies. Earlier this month, Brookfield announced a deal with Microsoft Corp. to develop renewable capacity in the United States and Europe equivalent to the electricity needed to power approximately 1.8 million homes by 2030.

Brookfield manages $929 billion in assets, including $102 billion through its renewable energy division, which currently operates approximately 33 gigawatts of generating capacity and expects to generate another 157 gigawatts through its investments.