OREANDA-NEWS. January 31, 2017. Utility American Electric Power (AEP) completed the sale of four power plants to Lightstone Generation.

AEP sold its 2,665MW coal-fired James M. Gavin Plant in Cheshire, Ohio, along with the natural gas-powered 1,186 MW Lawrenceburg Generating Station in Indiana and the 840MW Waterford Energy Center and Darby Generating Station plants in Ohio for \\$2.1bn, the company said today.

Ohio-based AEP expects to net about \\$1.2bn after tax, repayment of debt and transaction fees.

The sale is part of AEP's strategy to exit the merchant power generating business and comprises 5,200MW of the 7,900MW of generating capacity in assets the company has put under review to sell. Lightstone, a joint venture formed by private equity groups ArcLight Capital Partners and Blackstone, financed the transaction with almost \\$1.8mn in loans and \\$723mn in cash, credit ratings agency Moody's wrote in a November report.

The Gavin plant, the state's largest power plant by generating capacity, took 5.37mn short tons (4.87mn metric tonnes) of coal from mines in Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia in January to October of last year, data from the US Energy Information Administration show.