The New Zealand Stock Exchange (NZX) has reached a conditional agreement to buy energy market operator The Marketplace Company (M-co). Financial terms were not disclosed.
M-co designs, develops and operates markets for electricity, electricity derivatives, gas and carbon.
The proposed acquisition includes the energy and gas businesses and M-co's software and trading platforms including EnergyHedge, for electricity derivatives, and Regi, a carbon registry.
No agreement has been reached on M-co's 50% interest in alternative market Unlisted. NZX says this is being dealt with separately and discussions with the other Unlisted shareholders will be conducted soon.
NZX says a sale and purchase agreement should be concluded this month and the deal will be funded via a mix of debt and equity.
Mark Weldon, CEO, NZX, says: "There are strong strategic and operational synergies between NZX and M-co. A particular focus will be bringing that expertise together to work on developing a liquid hedge market for New Zealand electricity."
Separately, NZX's carbon market subsidiary TZ1 has inked a partnership agreement with the American Carbon Registry. Under the deal, the two will work together in a bid to stimulate the market for trading US pre-compliance and global voluntary market carbon offsets.
TZ1 will provide its online registry infrastructure to the American Carbon Registry, including real-time Web-based secure accounts to buy, sell, hold and retire carbon offsets.