ITC Holdings Corp. Completes Acquisition Of Michigan Electric Transmission Company

Novi, MI — ITC Holdings Corp. announced that it has completed the acquisition of all of the outstanding equity interests in Michigan Electric Transmission Company, LLC ("METC"), a privately-held company and the neighboring transmission system to ITCTransmission, ITC Holdings' wholly owned operating subsidiary, in a transaction valued at approximately $865 million.

"We are pleased to welcome METC to the ITC Holdings family," said Joseph L. Welch, president and CEO of ITC Holdings. "METC has built a solid foundation as a business, and together with ITCTransmission, we will continue to rebuild the electricity transmission infrastructure in Michigan in our endeavor to promote electric reliability and enhance service to our customers."

The acquisition of METC establishes ITC Holdings as the largest independent electricity transmission company and the 10th largest electricity transmission serving entity in the country.

"This transaction will increase ITC Holdings' size and scale and provides us with incremental opportunities to deploy capital going forward," said Welch. "Since announcing the acquisition in May, we have focused on integration efforts so that customers can begin realizing the benefits of operational efficiencies resulting from simplified, joint operations and the ability to jointly identify, coordinate and plan system needs, projects and construction."

METC's selling shareholders, Evercore Capital Partners, Macquarie Essential Assets Partnership, TE Power Opportunities Investors LP, a GFI Energy Ventures LLC portfolio company and other private investors, received consideration valued at approximately $554 million, consisting of $484 million in cash and 2.2 million shares of ITC Holdings common stock. In addition, ITC Holdings has assumed approximately $311 million of METC debt.

Credit Suisse and Lehman Brothers acted as financial advisors to ITC Holdings. Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP served as ITC Holdings' legal counsel, and Stuntz Davis & Staffier, PC served as legal counsel regarding FERC matters. Macquarie Securities (USA), Inc. served as financial advisor to the selling shareholders of METC and Winston & Strawn LLP and Dickstein Shapiro LLP acted as their legal counsel. The selling shareholders also received advice from Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan and Bear Stearns.

SOURCE: ITC Holdings Corp.