AES has cleared CFIUS on its $15.00-a-share sale to Global Infrastructure Partners and EQT, leaving the power regulators as the remaining gate

One sentence does the work. AES told the Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday afternoon that it has received CFIUS Approval, as that term is defined in its merger agreement, and that the approval is a condition to closing.

Nothing else changed. The filing carries a single item, Item 8.01, no exhibit and no press release. It repeats that Horizon Merger Sub will merge into AES, that AES survives, and that the merger remains subject to certain additional regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions. It does not say which ones.

What is being bought, and for how much

The 27 August filing carries no price. The agreement it points back to does.

Section 2.01 of the merger agreement signed on 1 March converts each outstanding AES share into the right to receive $15.00 in cash without interest. The March announcement put a total equity value of $10.7bn on that, and an enterprise value of approximately $33.4bn including assumed debt, against a share count of 712 million and proportional net debt of $22,724m at the end of 2025. The $15.00 was described as a 40.3 percent premium to the 30-day volume weighted average price before 8 July 2025, which the company identifies as the last full trading day before the first media report of a possible acquisition.

The buyers are a consortium. Global Infrastructure Partners, which the March release describes as part of BlackRock, and the EQT Infrastructure VI fund, with the California Public Employees' Retirement System and the Qatar Investment Authority named as co-underwriters. Thursday's filing describes the outcome more loosely, as joint ownership by vehicles affiliated with Global Infrastructure Management and EQT Infrastructure VI "as well as other investors."

Why a foreign investment committee is in a domestic utility deal

CFIUS is the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States. It reviews transactions that would result in foreign control of, or certain non-controlling investments in, American businesses, and its clearance was written into this merger agreement as a defined term and a closing condition.

No document retrieved for this item explains what the committee examined or why. The consortium as announced in March includes a European infrastructure fund and a sovereign wealth fund, and the review was a condition from the day the agreement was signed. That is the extent of what the filings support, and this desk does not go past it.

What is still outstanding

The March stakeholder presentation listed the approvals the deal needed: the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the New York Public Service Commission, CFIUS, and certain foreign approvals. One of those four is now done.

The others are the ones that touch customers rather than capital. AES owns AES Indiana and AES Ohio, and the March release said both would continue as locally operated and managed regulated utilities under the new ownership.

Timing remains what the company said in March, a close in late 2026 or early 2027. Thursday's filing does not restate it.