Spirit Super and Stonepeak to buy GeelongPort

Oksana Patron

22 November 2022

Industry super fund, Spirit Super has announced that, in partnership with alternative investment firm Stonepeak, it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire 100% of Australia’s second largest port GeelongPort.

Under the terms of the agreement, Stonepeak, on behalf of its managed funds and accounts, would hold a majority 70% interest in the entity and Spirit Super will have a 30% stake.

The transaction would be expected to close towards the end of the first quarter of 2023, subject to customary regulatory approvals.

GeelongPort is a diversified landlord port and a major driver of Victoria’s economy, managing over $7 billion of trade and supporting more than 1,800 jobs across the state.

“We believe the location of GeelongPort makes it of high strategic significance, as it provides easy access to logistics routes for trade through critical road, rail, air, and channel connections for Geelong and south-west Victoria’s supply chains,” the firms said.

“As a high-quality landlord port with operations that are critical to Australia’s economy, GeelongPort is a natural fit for Stonepeak’s core infrastructure strategy,” Darren Keogh, Senior Managing Director at Stonepeak, said.

“It is a highly contracted entity with strong barriers to entry and stable and predictable demand drivers, which we believe are even more compelling when coupled with the port’s meaningful opportunities for long-term growth through additional development to meet future import-export demand in the region. We look forward to working closely with the GeelongPort team to help further their objectives and invest behind this integral component of the Victorian economy.”

Stonepeak, is headquartered in New York with offices in Austin, Hong Kong, Houston, London, and Sydney, is an alternative investment firm specialising in infrastructure and real assets with approximately US$51.7 billion of assets under management (AUM).

It sponsors investment vehicles focused on private equity and credit and provides capital, operational support, and committed partnership to grow investments in its target sectors, which include communications, energy transition, transport and logistics, and social infrastructure.

In August, it was announced that Spirit Super and Palisade Investment Partners Consortium (the Consortium) withdrew its request for merger clearance from the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) for its proposed acquisition of the Port of Geelong after the ACCC had informed the Consortium that it continued to hold “preliminary competition concerns” needing more time to investigate and the Consortium subsequently decided to not proceed with the transaction.

The ACCC was concerned that the proposed acquisition may substantially lessen competition in the supply of port services for long-term bulk cargo customers in Victoria by reducing competition between the Port of Portland and Port of Geelong as combined, these ports handle over half of Victoria’s bulk cargo.

The agreement between Spirit Super and Palisade to acquire a 100% interest in GeelongPort from Brookfield and SAS Trustee Corporation Pty Ltd was first announced in January, 2022.