Two deals in two days for Capital Power

Utility deals are on fire, and Capital Power Corp. is making the most of it. A day after selling $125-million of rate reset preferred shares, Capital Power came back with $200-million more in common equity.

However, the latest deal has a slight twist, considering it's a secondary offering of EPCOR Utilities Inc.'s position in Capital Power. That means Capital Power itself won't see any of the proceeds. After the deal EPCOR will own 61.6 per cent.

EPCOR sold at Capital Power's highest ever stock price, which was $24.67.

The sale isn't alarming by any means, because EPCOR has always maintained it would sell down more of its ownership when the timing was right. EPCOR first spun off the power generating assets in an initial public offering last year.

The common shares came at a 2.7 per cent discount and RBC Dominion Securities and TD Securities co-led the offering.

The offering came on the same day that TransAlta Corp. issued and upsized its rate reset preferred share offering to $250-million.