Private equity investor Bain Capital, LP has entered into talks with Macquarie Group Limited (ASX:MQG) to acquire a majority stake in Vibrant Energy (VEH Global India Private Limited), which provides green power to commercial and industrial units, said sources aware of the development. ET first reported on 23 February that Macquarie had hired an investment bank to run a sale process for Vibrant Energy. "Bain is currently doing due diligence on the company.

A final offer is still some time away," said one of the sources cited above. The company is likely to fetch an equity value of around $200 million with an enterprise value of close to $500 million, the source added. The Vibrant stake sale had also evinced interest from strategic investors such as Indonesian solar energy producer Sun Energy (PT Surya Utama Nuansa) and global energy trading firm Vitol (Vitol Group), ET reported on 31 August.

"Some bulge bracket PE firms have evaluated other assets in the C&I sector in the past too. PE funds are keen to play in the energy transition space and are exploring various opportunities across the spectrum including C&I," said the source. In an interaction with ET in November, Pavaninder Singh, Partner - PrivateEquity at Bain Capital, said that energy transition is an important and long term theme that will see massive investments in the next decade and that Bain is keen on making opportunistic bets in the space.

Macquarie and Bain declined to comment on ET's queries.