Macquarie acquisition with Hut 8 of four generating facilities in Ontario

On February 15, 2024, Macquarie Equipment Finance Ltd. (“Macquarie”) successfully closed the acquisition, in partnership with Hut 8 Corp. (formerly Hut 8 Mining Corp.) (“Hut 8”), of four natural gas power plants located in Ontario from Validus Power Corp. (“Validus”) for total consideration of approximately C$64.3 million.

The transaction was first announced on August 11, 2023. Pursuant to the transaction agreement, Hut 8, as Macquarie’s designated assignee, would purchase all of the shares of Validus’s operating subsidiaries and certain other operational assets.

The transaction served as the stalking horse bid in a sale and investment solicitation process, supervised by the Ontario Superior Court of Justice (Commercial List) (the “Court”) as part of the Validus group’s restructuring proceeding commenced on August 10, 2023 under the Companies' Creditors Arrangement Act (Canada). The transaction was declared the successful bid and subsequently received the Court’s approval on January 4, 2024 and closed on February 15, 2024.

The purchaser entity formed by Hut 8 and Macquarie, Far North Power Corp. (“Far North”), is now the owner of 310 MW of power infrastructure, including:

• 110 MW natural-gas-fired combined-cycle generating facility in Kingston, Ontario
• 120 MW natural-gas-fired combined-cycle generating facility in Iroquois Falls, Ontario
• 40 MW gas-fired generating facility in Kapuskasing, Ontario
• 40 MW gas-fired generating facility and Bitcoin mine in North Bay, Ontario

Macquarie also entered into a new secured funding arrangement with Far North in the form of an operating lease facility.

Further information can be found on Globe Newswire’s website.

Macquarie is a global provider of independent lease financing and asset management solutions. It is a subsidiary of Macquarie Group Limited, a global financial services organization operating in 34 markets.

Hut 8 is one of North America’s largest, digital asset mining pioneers and high-performance computing infrastructure providers. Headquartered in Miami, Florida, its infrastructure portfolio includes eleven sites: five high performance computing data centers across British Columbia and Ontario that offer cloud, co-location, AI, machine learning, and VFX rendering computing solutions, and six Bitcoin mining, hosting, and managed services sites located in Alberta, New York, Nebraska, and Texas.