Electricity Supply Board (ESB), Ireland's premier electricity utility, announced on 21st November 2013 that it has completed the sale of its 50% shareholding in Marchwood Power Limited (MPL) to Munich Re, a major European insurance company based in Germany.

MPL, which ESB jointly owned with Scottish and Southern Energy (SSE), owns and operates one of the most efficient combined cycle gas turbine power plants in the UK. Marchwood Power Ltd. began commercial operations in 2009.

Speaking about the sale Paddy Hayes, Director of Generation and Wholesale Markets at ESB said;

"MPL is a very professional operation with strong performance. ESB initially developed the power plant project and ESB International acted as Owner's Engineer during construction. By every measure, Marchwood has been a very successful project."

A very robust sales process for ESB's 50% shareholding was managed by Macquarie Capital (Europe) and a competitive price was achieved.

This sale was carried out in accordance with the Irish Government request for ESB to raise a special dividend of €400 million from the sale of non strategic generation assets.  NewERA are acting as advisor to the Irish Government in this process.

Meag, the asset manager of Munich Re and Ergo, manages assets of around €228 billion. Meag has plans to invest €1.5 billion in infrastructure of which more than €500 million have been invested in this asset class so far.