Abu Dhabi’s TAQA agreed to buy Spanish water treatment company GS Inima for $1.2 billion as the emirate’s government-backed firms accelerate a global acquisition spree in search of scale. GS Inima will boost TAQA’s desalination capacity by about 14% and will bring the firm closer to its goal of treating more water through reverse osmosis, which uses less energy than conventional methods.
The deal is the latest in a string of expansions by the Abu Dhabi firm: Last year TAQA — a power and water company — led a consortium to build, own, and operate a reservoir to supply water in Mecca during the Hajj season, and in April it agreed to buy one of the UK’s largest companies connecting offshore wind farms to the grid.
Some of Abu Dhabi’s biggest firms are clinching multibillion-dollar deals with sights set on larger international footprints. XRG, the global lower carbon and gas investment arm of ADNOC, is in the midst of a $18.7 billion takeover of Australian gas producer Santos.