AltaGas set to lower debt

Article Excerpt

ALTAGAS LTD. $18.81 (Toronto symbol ALA; TSINetwork Rating: Extra Risk) (416-365-3535; www.altagas.ca; Shares outstanding: 276.9 million; Market cap: $5.2 billion; Dividend yield: 5.1%) has now agreed to sell its portfolio of U.S. distributed generation assets held by its subsidiaries WGL Energy Systems, Inc. and WGSW, Inc. The buyer, TerraForm Power, Inc., is an affiliate of Brookfield Asset Management (symbol BAM.A on Toronto) and has agreed to pay $940 million. Distributed generation systems are small decentralized power plants that are located close to the customers they serve, but with capacities of only 10 megawatts or less. AltaGas is on track to complete a number of planned asset sales to pay down debt resulting from its July 2018 purchase of Washington, D.C.-based utility WGL Holdings Inc. for $4 billion. AltaGas is a buy. buy…