Brookfield and EIG turned up with their golden briefcase, but it was no deal… If you’re at the starting line on this, the long story short is Origin Energy received a $20 billion takeover bid from the Canadian-American investment consortium. Origin needed 75% of the shareholder vote to come in for the deal, but yesterday, the proposal was rejected with 66.97% of the vote in favour. The main spoiler was Australian Super, which owns 17% of Origin. The massive fund said, “the value and future value of Origin is better in the hands of members … rather than a private equity consortium.” Brookfield and EIG promised to spend big money ($20-$30 billion) on speeding up Origin’s transition to renewables, but former PM Paul Keating described it as a “get-rich-quick” by a “profiteering private equity fund”. It remains to be seen whether the bidders will pack it up or have another go…