(Bloomberg) -- Apollo Global Management Inc. is in talks with Electricite de France SA to provide financing for a nuclear power plant under construction in the UK, people with knowledge of the matter said.
The alternative asset manager has held early discussions about providing a complex mix of equity and debt that may total billions of pounds, the people said, asking not to be identified because deliberations are private.
EDF has been holding meetings with a series of investors including investment firms, sovereign wealth funds and infrastructure specialists to raise as much as £4 billion ($5.2 billion) through a deal that would give investors a stake in the Hinkley Point C project, Bloomberg News reported last week. Centrica Plc. is one of the companies considering investing.
The estimated cost of building Hinkley has risen to as much as £47.9 billion in current terms, due in part to lingering labor shortages and supply chain issues. The first of the two reactors at the site is scheduled to become operational in 2030 — five years later than initially planned — under EDF’s base-case scenario.
Talks about financing Hinkley are at an early stage and may not result in a deal, the people said. Representatives for Apollo and EDF declined to comment.
A potential deal with EDF would follow other high-profile financing transactions from Apollo. The US private capital giant recently agreed to pay BP Plc $1 billion for 20% of a key Caspian-region natural gas pipeline. That followed an $11 billion transaction with Intel Corp., which agreed to sell a stake in a venture that controls a plant in Ireland.
And late last year, Apollo completed a quasi-equity financing of €1.5 billion ($1.6 billion) for Air France-KLM related to the “Flying Blue” loyalty program.
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