Emera to buy Canadian Utilities to create $72B energy ‘powerhouse’

CALGARY – The seeds for a new Canadian energy “powerhouse” were planted in the summer of last year, when trade tensions with the United States were escalating, Ottawa’s push for new nation-building infrastructure was accelerating and two corporations on either side of the country stood at a crossroads. 

Halifax-based Emera Inc. and Calgary-based Canadian Utilities announced plans Tuesday to merge into a new firm worth $72 billion that would rank among the continent’s largest utilities, with the scale necessary to seize opportunities from skyrocketing power demand. 

Meanwhile, Atco Ltd., Canadian Utilities’ controlling shareholder, is redefining itself as a more nimble firm focused on defence, housing and other infrastructure — including in far-flung and remote locales — as those needs rise to the top of governments’ priority lists.

Nancy Southern, Atco’s chief executive, said her counterpart at Emera, Scott Balfour, made the overture 15 months ago. 

“Scott, like myself, is a great patriot, a true Canadian, and he started thinking about how we’d make a good Canadian powerhouse energy company,” she said. 

Southern said around the same time she’d been thinking about how Canadian Utilities, where she serves as executive chair, could achieve the scale needed to meet booming demand from artificial intelligence data centres and growth in electrification for clean power. 

“How do you get to the next threshold? How do you get to the next level?” she said. 

Emera was in a similar spot, simplifying its portfolio, strengthening its balance sheet and getting itself ready for the next stage of growth at the same time “Canada Strong” sentiment was building across the country, Balfour said in an interview. 

“You know what? It’s time to build a Canadian champion and to make sure that there’s a strong Canadian company that is able to help drive growth, with the financial strength in order to participate in supporting the generational need for new infrastructure in this country,” he recalled thinking.

The combined utility company will operate under the Emera banner, keeping its public company headquarters in Halifax and corporate and operational offices in Calgary and Edmonton. Balfour will remain at the helm. Post-merger Emera is to serve six million customers spanning various parts of Canada, as well as the United States, Mexico, the Caribbean and Australia. 

The combined Emera-Canadian Utilities plans to spend $32 billion in capital through 2030. Emera expects that 80 per cent of its post-merger operations will be in Florida and Alberta, two of the highest growth regions in North America.

Southern is to remain at the helm of a refocused Atco and co-chair Emera’s board. 

“Post the merger and the full transaction closure, you’re going to see a very interesting Atco —  entrepreneurial, ready to go and compete, not afraid of remote and harsh conditions, and a track record of people that have experience,” she told analysts on a conference call earlier Tuesday. 

She said it was the right time for the family-controlled firm to let go of its investment in Canadian Utilities, which it has held since 1980.

“I don’t see us, from a strict utility perspective, being able to compete in a world where scale matters so much today,” she said.

“We’ve never felt as a family that we want to limit our businesses and we believe … it’s very important to allow our businesses to exercise the opportunities available to them.”

The move also frees up Atco’s remaining business to pursue opportunities in defence, energy security and housing — all big priorities under Prime Minister Mark Carney’s government as it contends with a tumultuous cross-border trading relationship, affordability pressures and geopolitical turmoil. 

Southern said in the interview that the investor base long drawn to Atco for its utilities business is likely to shift. Its infrastructure offerings had been overlooked while lumped in with the power segment, she said. 

“We really believe that this will open up greater value for the Atco businesses, and we will see a change, I believe, in ownership. Atco will be much smaller, so it won’t be an indexed stock for the fund investors,” Southern said. 

“We’ll have to do a lot of explaining and education on how the two companies look post-close.”

Under the deal, Emera is to acquire all of the outstanding shares of Canadian Utilities, valued at about $14.3 billion. Existing Emera shareholders are expected to own about 60 per cent of the combined utility, while former Atco and Canadian Utilities shareholders are expected to own about 40 per cent.

Shareholders of Emera, Canadian Utilities and Atco are to vote on the transaction early next year. It is also subject to court, regulatory, competition and stock exchange approvals in numerous jurisdictions.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 6, 2026.

Companies in this story: (TSX:EMA, TSX:CU, TSX:ACO.X)