Platina Energy Partners (Platina) has sold a 34.5MWp portfolio of eight operating solar plants located in Italy to a European financial investor for a total deal value of EUR131.9 million. The completion is subject to change-of-control approvals by the portfolio’s debt providers.
Five of the plants are located in the Puglia region and three in Campania. The plants were built and connected to grid between 2010 and 2011 and benefit from the Italian feed-in-tariff (FIT) regime. Five long-term non-recourse project finance with outstanding capital of EUR77M by Italian and European banks will remain in place.
Riccardo Cirillo, Managing Partner at Platina, says: “We are delighted to have signed the sale of these very good Italian solar portfolios creating significant value for the funds we manage. In spite of retroactive changes to the Italian photovoltaic FIT regime in 2014, our investment and asset management teams have managed to bring us back to the original investment expectations.”
Giovanni Paolo di Giovanni, Investment Director at Platina, says: “After having delivered high teens returns to our shareholders with this transaction, solar PV remains our focus; Platina is now seeking to redeploy most of the sales proceeds towards new opportunities in Europe as part of its newly launched solar yield platform.”
Gianni Origoni Grippo Cappelli & Partners (legal) and EnVent (M&A) advised Platina in this transaction.
