Mr Cannon-Brookes,the co-founder of software developer Atlassian and Australia’s third-richest person,on Sunday said it was with great sadness that the consortium was “putting our pens down”.
“This weekend,the board rejected our raised offer of $8.25 - 46 per cent more than the price of $5.55 about 90 days ago,” he said in a post on Twitter.
Mr Cannon-Brookes said the consortium’s proposal to spend between $10 billion and $20 billion in large-scale renewable energy and batteries to enable the early closures of AGL’s power stations that account for 8 per cent of Australia’s overall greenhouse gas emissions would have been the “world’s biggest decarbonisation project”.
But instead,the board was proceeding with its controversial plan to demerge its massive coal- and gas-fired power stations into a separate entity known as Accel Energy and continue burning coal until the mid-2040s,he said.
“This path is a terrible outcome for shareholders,taxpayers,customers,Australia and the planet we all share,” Mr Cannon-Brookes said.
AGL last month knocked back Mr Cannon-Brookes and Brookfield’s initial $8 billion takeover proposal for the company,telling investors it believed the offer “materially undervalues” the business and would not be in their best interests to approve.