The funds control about 77% of Azure Power and have sounded out advisers about a sale
La Caisse and the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System are weighing sales of part of their holdings in Indian renewable energy firm Azure Power India Pvt in a deal that could raise as much as $300m.
Bloomberg reported that the two funds have sounded out potential advisers and may call for pitches in the coming weeks, citing people familiar with the matter who asked not to be identified because the information is private.
Those people told Bloomberg the funds may seek an equity valuation of $1.3bn for Azure Power, and that the two together own about 77 percent of the company.
Considerations sit at an early stage and will not necessarily lead to a sale, according to the same people.
Representatives for La Caisse and OMERS declined to comment to Bloomberg, and Azure Power did not respond to the outlet's requests for comment.
Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, known as La Caisse, took its position through a US$75m private placement of 6,493,506 equity shares at US$11.55 each, Azure Power Global Limited announced in a November 2019 statement.
OMERS Infrastructure followed in 2021, buying roughly 19.4 percent of the company from International Finance Corporation and IFC GIF Investment Company I for about US$219m.
In the fund's own announcement of that purchase, Annesley Wallace, then executive vice president and global head of OMERS Infrastructure, said the agreement “demonstrates OMERS strong global interest in high-quality renewable power and energy transition assets.”
According to the Globe and Mail at the time, Azure Power shares lost two-thirds of their value in the week to September 2, 2022, most of that on August 29.
The drop followed the company's disclosure of chief executive officer Harsh Shah's resignation and a May 2022 whistleblower complaint alleging "potential procedural irregularities and misconduct by certain employees" at a subsidiary plant.
The paper calculated from trading records that the Caisse had spent roughly US$488m accumulating more than 34 million shares at an average of about US$14, leaving an unrealized loss of more than US$350m, while OMERS had paid an average of just over US$21 per share for nearly 14 million shares, a paper loss of more than US$200m.
NYSE Regulation suspended trading and moved to delist the shares in July 2023 because the company had not filed its annual report on Form 20-F for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2022, the exchange said in its announcement.
A committee of the NYSE board upheld that determination on Oct. 30, 2023, and the exchange filed a Form 25 the following day, Azure Power confirmed in a statement.
The US Securities and Exchange Commission charged Gautam Adani and Sagar Adani of Adani Green Energy Ltd., along with Azure Power's Cyril Cabanes, in November 2024 over an alleged bribery scheme to secure Indian government solar contracts, according to the commission's litigation release.
A parallel US Department of Justice indictment named former Azure Power executives Ranjit Gupta and Rupesh Agarwal, plus Cabanes, Saurabh Agarwal, and Deepak Malhotra, all former employees of the Caisse. Adani denied the charges.
Gautam and Sagar Adani agreed in May 2026 to pay US$18m to settle the SEC civil suit without admitting or denying the allegations, CNBC reported.
Judge Nicholas Garaufis of the US District Court for the Eastern District of New York later dismissed the securities and wire fraud charges against the Adanis with prejudice while calling the DOJ's handling of the request “highly unusual,” Bar and Bench reported from the order.
Garaufis reserved decision on the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act conspiracy count against Gupta, Cabanes, Saurabh Agarwal, Malhotra, and Rupesh Agarwal, and on the obstruction count against four of them, describing the department's claim that the conduct had been investigated in India as “not only without sufficient factual support, but also inaccurate.”
He ordered the DOJ to file fuller factual justification, and defence counsel to confirm consent, by August 31.
