Origin investors reject Brookfield’s $10.6 billion bid on proxy votes

By Scott Murdoch and Lewis Jackson

SYDNEY (Reuters) – Origin Energy’s investors have rejected a $10.6 billion Brookfield-led consortium’s bid for Australia’s largest power retailer at a shareholder meeting on Monday.

The proxy votes were 31.07% against the bid with 66.97% in favour, a slide shown to investors at meeting in Sydney showed, failing to reach the 75% threshold required for a takeover to proceed.

A final result will be known later on Monday.

The deal was expected to fail after Origin’s largest shareholder A$300 billion ($198 billion) pension fund AustralianSuper said it would reject the A$9.39 per share offer.

AustralianSuper owns about 17% of Origin, which was enough to block the bid that required at least 75% support from the votes cast.

Origin’s board on Thursday rejected an alternative proposal lodged last week from the consortium to be considered if the current offer failed.

Brookfield flagged on Friday if the deal was voted down the consortium would need to consider whether a new government plan to reshape energy markets negatively impacted its view of Origin’s value.

Origin shares were down 3.9% after the investor vote, extending losses to a fresh nine month low.