Vistra closed its $4 billion Cogentrix buy: 5,496 megawatts, and the DOJ required a Maine plant divested

On October 30, Vistra▼−1.56% — Vistra, down 1.56 percent today Corp., the Irving, Texas power generator and retail electricity seller, completed its purchase of Cogentrix Energy↗ from funds managed by Quantum Capital Group: ten natural gas plants totaling 5,496 megawatts, taking the fleet to nearly 50,000 megawatts nationwide ¹.

The same evening, the Justice Department's Antitrust Division closed its probe into the merger↗ after the parties agreed to divest a Maine power plant, an agreement the agency said reduces "the combined firm's ability and incentive to withhold electricity and raise prices." The divestiture sale itself stays under DOJ monitoring ².

Vistra named no price at close. Its January announcement did.

The closing announcement disclosed no financial terms ¹. The January announcement↗ did: $4 billion, made up of $2.3 billion in cash, about $900 million in Vistra stock to Quantum and roughly $1.5 billion of assumed Cogentrix debt, with about $700 million of deal tax benefits flowing back to Vistra ³. Chief Executive Jim Burke called the assets "a strong strategic fit" for a fleet growing into AI-era demand ¹.

Five of the ten plants sit where the data centers queue

Five of the acquired plants, including the 881-megawatt Patriot and Hamilton-Liberty units in Pennsylvania, sit in PJM Interconnection, the 13-state grid serving more than 67 million people and the nation's largest concentration of data centers ¹⁴.

The evening before the close, PJM filed a revised plan↗ for a special March 1-28 auction to buy up to 6.8 gigawatts of new capacity at a price cap of $555 per megawatt-day: about $1.4 billion a year, roughly $20.7 billion over 15 years if filled ⁴. Federal regulators had called PJM's original plan "deeply flawed" and delayed the auction five months; the March dates now wait on their approval ⁴.

The auction names Vistra, alongside Constellation Energy▼−0.79% — Constellation Energy, down 0.79 percent today, NRG Energy▼−1.52% — NRG Energy, down 1.52 percent today and Talen Energy▼−1.64% — Talen Energy, down 1.64 percent today, among the producers positioned to win it ⁴. The only Maine plant in the acquired portfolio is the 271-megawatt Rumford facility; neither the agency nor the company has named the divested asset ¹.

November 6 is the first print that carries the plants

Consensus expects earnings of $2.40 a share↗, up 37.1% year over year, on revenue of $7.44 billion, up 49.8% ⁵. The strongest of Vistra's last nine reported quarters was $6.29 billion in Q3 2024; the consensus quarter would clear it by about $1.15 billion ⁶. A $20.7 billion auction proposal, a monitored divestiture and an unpriced closing all land inside one earnings call ⁴²¹.

The bears got the same news the bulls did

Of 82 analysts, 78 rate Vistra a buy, with a median price target of $210, 53% above Friday's close ⁷. That close was $137.10, down 2.7% on the day the deal completed ⁷.

An earnings-surprise model shows the consensus EPS estimate revised 8.66% higher in 30 days, yet the most accurate estimate sits below consensus at an Earnings ESP of -7.22%, a combination the researchers themselves call hard to call ⁵. Gary Cunningham, research director at brokerage Tradition Energy, expects PJM "isn't going to buy much new capacity," calls the program "a lot of noise for not a lot of actual help for reliability," and notes that every customer in a growing utility zone pays, "not just new load" ⁴.

Three dates decide what the fleet is worth

FERC's ruling on PJM's revised allocation, PJM's December annual capacity auction, and the DOJ-monitored sale of the Maine plant now carry more pricing power over these 5,496 megawatts than any quarter of output ⁴². Until those resolve, the AI premium on the fleet is still a proposal. November 6 shows whether management finally puts numbers on a deal it has not priced ⁵. Earlier reporting followed the $4.2 billion Department of Energy loan offer and the $1 billion preferred redemption behind this build-out; that deep dive is linked here↗ ⁸.