Contact Seeks Clearance To Acquire Manawa

The Commerce Commission has received a clearance application from Contact Energy Limited, seeking clearance to acquire up to 100% of the shares in Manawa Energy Limited.

Contact and Manawa are both generators and wholesalers of electricity in New Zealand. Contact generates electricity from two hydro dams in the South Island as well as from geothermal and thermal power stations located across the North Island. Manawa generates electricity from 25 hydro schemes and one thermal power station, located across New Zealand. Manawa was formerly known as Trustpower, having been rebranded following the sale of Trustpower’s retail business to Mercury in 2022.

Contact and Manawa both wholesale the electricity they generate to electricity retailers as well as to large commercial and industrial end users. Contact is one of several ‘gentailers’ in New Zealand because it generates and retails electricity to all types of customers. However, unlike Contact, Manawa does not directly sell electricity to any residential customers.

The Commission expects to issue a statement of preliminary issues and call for submissions on the clearance application in October. 

A public version of the clearance application will be available shortly on the Commission’s case register.

Background

We will give clearance to a proposed merger if we are satisfied that the merger is unlikely to have the effect of substantially lessening competition in a market.

Further information explaining how the Commission assesses a merger application is available on our website.

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