KKR & Co. agreed to pay $3.37 billion for a 20% stake in a Sempra Energy unit comprising the U.S. company’s infrastructure assets, including a liquefied natural gas project and a Mexican renewables and pipelines operator, Bloomberg News reported. It’s the latest example of a broader push among U.S. utilities eschewing diversification to focus on providing electricity and gas to homes and businesses. The deal values Sempra Infrastructure Partners at about $25.2 billion, including expected asset-related debt, Sempra said Monday in a statement. Selling the stake also sets a market value for Sempra’s infrastructure unit, said Pavel Molchanov, an analyst at Raymond James. “That means that Sempra’s banks, its lenders, can look at this and perhaps improve how they think about the company’s balance sheet.” The move comes four months after Sempra announced the creation of the new unit to simplify its structure and aid development of gas and renewables projects. The company, which recently announced a $32 billion capital-spending plan focused on its Texas and California utilities, plans to use the proceeds to fund growth of its U.S. utilities and strengthen its balance sheet.
