Allianz Global Investors (AllianzGI) has made an investment on behalf of its clients into the Balko Wind project (Balko Wind), a 300MW installed capacity wind farm located in Beaver County, Oklahoma.
Affiliates of D E Shaw Renewable Investments (DESRI) own Balko Wind. AllianzGI provided funding to refinance Balko Wind’s existing bank financing. The transaction was executed as a “back-leverage” loan in order to tailor the solution to the structure that DESRI had in place.
This is the first infrastructure debt renewable energy investment made by AllianzGI in a project sponsored by DESRI. KeyBank, NA acted as Placement Agent and provider of other ancillary debt facilities.
“We welcome having a firm of AllianzGI’s caliber invest in the Balko Wind project,” says Bryan Martin, CEO of DESRI. “DESRI and its partners are committed to bringing clean, cost-competitive renewable energy to markets across the US”
“Balko Wind is another important milestone in our US Infrastructure Debt strategy. DESRI is in the forefront of renewable energy investing and our ability to provide financing solutions is a testament to AllianzGI’s growth in the market. This transaction is one of the few examples of institutional investors providing back-leverage financing to US utility scale wind projects, a market traditionally served by commercial banks. We are excited to continue offering our clients exposure to segments of the market traditionally less accessible to them,” says Jorge Camina, Director, Infrastructure Debt.
AllianzGI has been a leading provider of institutional infrastructure debt solutions to the European market since 2013 and entered the US market in 2015. With the achievement of the financial close of Balko Wind, the AllianzGI infrastructure debt platform has now made over USD2.25 billion of investment commitments to infrastructure assets in the US over a period of 20 months, with more expected to follow.
