Glennmont Partners has completed the acquisition of a 42MW windfarm project located in Sicily from Athena Investments. As part of the same transaction, private investment house Ardian Infrastructure, has completed the acquisition via its controlled company 4New, of a 157.2MW portfolio of brownfield wind farms and photovoltaic plants located in Italy and Spain.
The windfarm in Italy started operations in 2010, benefits from a Feed in Tariff scheme and is located in an area with outstanding wind resources. This acquisition represents a further step in the capital deployment of Glennmont’s €850m Clean Energy Fund III which achieved final close in June.
Following the French onshore and German offshore windfarms acquisition, the closing of this transaction is a further step toward the investment of Glennmont Clean Energy Fund Europe III (“Fund”). The deal helps to sustain Glennmont’s recent momentum with investors following the sale of the Italian solar portfolio held by its first equity fund and the acquisitions of several clean energy loan portfolios by Glennmont’s renewable energy credit fund (Glennmont REBS Europe Fund I).
The acquisition further enhances Glennmont’s reputation in clean energy infrastructure, their expertise for providing attractive risk-adjusted returns to investors and the strong growth opportunities that renewables continue to enjoy as an asset class.
Francesco Cacciabue, CFO and Partner at Glennmont Partners, says: “We are pleased to be completing the third acquisition of Glennmont’s Clean Energy Fund III. This transaction proves the quality and feasibility of Glennmont’s investment strategy delivering good performance and predictable returns for investors.
“The complexity of this transaction was underpinned by the level of expertise across our specialist team at Glennmont and proves the quality of our origination capabilities in local markets. We were delighted to work with Ardian on this transaction and we look forward to further opportunities to co-operate with them on deals in the future.”
In the transaction structuring L&B Partners has been involved. DLA Piper and L&B Partners Avvocati Associati acted as legal advisors, EOS Consulting acted as technical advisor and Studio Tremonti Romagnoli Piccardi e Associati acted as tax advisor for the transaction.