BlackRock Just Bought a Minnesota Utility [View all]

On Friday, state regulators voted unanimously in favor of allowing private equity to take a Duluth-based utility holding company private. The Prospect takes you inside the room where it all went down.

by James Baratta October 8, 2025


ST. PAUL, MINNESOTA – The private equity takeover of Minnesota Power’s parent company, ALLETE, will now move forward after all five members of the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission (PUC) agreed to approve the $6.2 billion deal on Friday morning.

In an interview with the Prospect, Alissa Jean Schafer, climate and energy director at Private Equity Stakeholder Project (PESP), said the ALLETE acquisition “is just going to be a line item in an aggressive strategy” by BlackRock-owned Global Infrastructure Partners to cash in on the artificial intelligence-data center boom.

“We see BlackRock positioning itself very aggressively to take advantage of the entire supply chain when it comes to AI and data centers, and power generation is a really key part of that,” Schafer told the Prospect. The business case for buying a utility is obvious: the data center buildout is jacking up electricity demand, and with the Trump administration strangling both new electricity generation and transmission capacity, prices are going up.

SNIP*
THE RESPONSE FROM THE DOC was underwhelming. I sent three questions upon returning to the hotel, the first of which sought clarification on the opposition groups Wyckoff contacted in July to inform them the settlement had been reached.
https://prospect.org/environment/blackrock-minnesota-utility-private-equity/

Long but worth the time to see how the swine works its way in.