Canadian institutional investor La Caisse, formerly known as CDPQ, is acquiring Australian solar energy and battery storage company Edify, the firm said in a statement.
The deal, which is coupled with further equity capital funding, is expected to be worth about 1 billion Canadian dollars ($724 million).
The additional equity will also be used to finance two ready-to-build integrated solar and battery energy storage system projects, totaling 900 MW, with global mining group Rio Tinto and the Australian government as offtake partners. The new investment from La Caisse will also support Edify’s pipeline of hybrid and battery storage projects of more than 11GW.
Parts of the transaction are subject to change-of-control and regulatory approvals. La Caisse was advised by ICA Partners and Clifford Chance, while Edify was advised by Lazard Australia and Herbert-Smith Freehills Kramer.
Founded in 2015, Edify has since delivered 11 projects across New South Wales, Queensland, and Victoria, totalling more than 1.1 GW of capacity. The company is also managing the operations of six solar farms and five battery energy storage systems that it has developed, financed, and constructed.
La Caisse, which manages several pensions and insurance plans in Canada with net assets of over 496 billion Canadian dollars, invests across private equity, infrastructure, real estate, and private credit strategies. About 10% of its global portfolio is in the Asia Pacific.
Earlier this month, La Caisse invested $200 million in a platform that will generate Australian carbon credit units from sustainable agriculture. Australian climate investor Clean Energy Finance Corporation committed $50 million to the platform, which already has a long-term agreement with Rio Tinto as a foundation offtaker.
La Caisse reported that for its half-year to June 30, 2025, the weighted average return on its depositors’ funds was 4.6%; the average annualised return over five years was 7.7%.
Its infrastructure portfolio reported an annualised return of 11.2% over five years. In the first six months of this year, nearly $4 billion of acquisitions were made in the telecommunications, data centres, and power transmission sectors.
In its private equity unit, the team realised just over $8 billion worth of assets, while making new investments of $4 billion. The PE portfolio’s annualised return over five years was 16.7%, driven by the technology, finance, and industrial sectors.
