Abu Dhabi Is Buying 90% of Azura Power, Nigeria’s Best-Known Private Generator

NIGERIA · ENERGY

Abu Dhabi’s ePointZero is buying 90% of Azura Power, the 752MW pan-African generator founded in 2010 by Phillip Ihenacho’s Amaya Capital, which keeps a 10% minority stake. No price has been disclosed.

What Azura Power is, and why the buyer wants it

Azura Power was built around a single hard problem: whether a private company could finance, build and be paid for a large power plant in Nigeria. Azura Edo, a 461MW gas-fired plant outside Benin City, was the answer.

It reached completion under a project-finance structure backed by partial risk guarantees, and it became the template every subsequent Nigerian sponsor pointed at. That track record is a large part of what is being sold here.

The platform now spans three countries. Alongside Azura Edo sit Tobene in Senegal at 116MW and CTRG in Mozambique at 175MW, giving a combined 752MW of operating capacity. Each plant sells its output under a long-term power purchase agreement, and each supplies around 10% of grid baseload power in its market.

The development pipeline is larger than the operating book, at more than 1.5GW across gas, renewables and battery storage. For a buyer, that is the growth option attached to the cash-generating assets.

The Gulf is buying African infrastructure, quietly

ePointZero sits under 2PointZero, part of the Abu Dhabi group of companies that has been steadily acquiring industrial and infrastructure positions outside the Emirates. The deal was announced to the Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange, where 2PointZero is listed, and it is ePointZero’s first African power platform.

The buyer has been expanding quickly. In July it agreed to acquire Traverse Midstream Partners, a US natural gas pipeline business, for US$2.25 billion. “As ePointZero continues to expand its global energy platform, the acquisition of Azura Power strengthens our presence in a region where energy demand, economic growth, and long-term opportunity are closely aligned,” said 2PointZero managing director Mariam Almheiri.

Gulf capital has become one of the most active sources of finance for African energy and logistics assets, often stepping in where development finance institutions are rotating out. That is exactly what is happening here.

Actis, a development-focused private equity manager, and Africa50, the infrastructure investment platform backed by African states and the African Development Bank, are both exiting. Their departure is a normal fund-life event rather than a verdict on the assets.

What replaces them is patient sovereign-linked money with a longer horizon and a lower cost of capital. That combination usually means more capital expenditure and fewer refinancings. The group is explicit about the need: electricity demand in Africa is expected to nearly double by 2040, while access across Sub-Saharan Africa remains at roughly 55%, citing World Bank data.

The number nobody has published

The most conspicuous absence in this announcement is a price. Neither the buyer nor the seller has disclosed financial terms, and no expected completion date has been given.

That is not unusual for a private infrastructure transaction, but it does limit what can be said about valuation. Any per-megawatt figure circulating for this deal is inference rather than disclosure.

Nor has the regulatory pathway been spelled out. The transaction is subject to approvals in each of the three jurisdictions where Azura operates, and Nigerian electricity transfers in particular require sector-regulator consent.

Amaya Capital’s retained 10% is the one structural detail that is clear. Founders keeping a minority stake usually signals continuity of management, though nothing to that effect has been confirmed.

What it means for Nigerian power, and for readers watching from Latin America

Nigeria’s grid problem has never been mainly about generation capacity. It is about transmission, distribution collections and whether generators actually get paid for the electricity they dispatch.

A better-capitalised owner does not fix any of that. It does, however, make it likelier that Azura’s development pipeline gets funded rather than shelved.

The parallel for Latin American readers is close to exact. Independent power producers in Brazil, Peru and Colombia have been consolidating into the hands of larger, cheaper capital for a decade, for the same reasons.

The unresolved question in both regions is the same one. Cheap capital improves the supply side, but nothing improves until the offtaker pays reliably, and no announcement can promise that.

There is also a sovereignty argument that will be made in Abuja and is worth taking seriously. Nigeria is handing majority control of its flagship private generator to a foreign state-linked investor, at a moment when electricity is the binding constraint on industrial policy.

The counter-argument is that Actis and Africa50 were always going to sell, and that the alternative to a Gulf buyer was not a Nigerian one but a delayed exit. Neither side of that debate is settled by this announcement.

What can be said is that the plants keep running and the pipeline gets a wealthier sponsor. Everything beyond that depends on approvals that have not yet been granted.

This report is based on 2PointZero’s statement to the Abu Dhabi Securities Exchange on 31 August, corroborated against reporting by The National and Khaleej Times and Azura Power’s published asset disclosures.

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