Quercus Asset Selection Sicav Sif, an European fund manager focused on investments in renewable infrastructure, bought the Bosco Le Piane wind farm in the Basilicata Region in Southern Italy owned by the Danishcompany European Energy A / S for 80 million euros (see the press release here).
In the transaction, Quercus was assisted on a legal level by Orrick, while European Energy was assisted by Gianni, Origoni, Grippo, Cappelli & Partners. The transaction was expected from August 2018, when Quercus signed the binding agreements for the acquisition (through its own Italian subsidiary) of 100% of Lucania Wind Energy srl, a project company owned by European Energy A / S and owner of the Bosco Le Piane eolic park (see here a previous post by BeBeez).
The project is equipped with the latest technologies and top-level components and consists of 13 Siemens Gamesa wind turbines with a total capacity of 39 MW. It is also the largest wind farm built in Italy in 2018 and serves 13 thousand families. The wind farm benefits from an incentive rate for 20 years, providing a predictable and stable distribution profile, in line with Quercus’ investment strategy. Lord Gregory Barker, chairman of Quercus, commented: “Now we have many active projects in Italy and others to be implemented in the coming months, because we believe that the country continues to be particularly interesting for investors in the European renewable energy sector”.
Quercus Asset Selection Sif was born in 2010 and is one of the main European funds specializing in renewable energies based in Luxembourg, the United Kingdom and Italy. The fund’s general partner is Quercus Assets Selection sarl, whose management advisor is Quercus Investment Partners, a UK law group among the major European investors in renewable energy, founded in 2010 by ceo Diego Blasi and Simone Borla.
Quercus has a joint venture with the UK government in the UK biomass industry and with Swiss Life in the large-scale photovoltaic market in Italy. We recall that the latter in a joint venture with Quercus bought 6 photovoltaic plants in Sicily and Puglia in August 2017 (see here a previous post by BeBeez). The establishment of the joint venture Erg Q Solar 1 between Quercos and Erg which was announced last August (see here a previous post by BeBeez) has instead just been suspended. Following the recent acquisition of two photovoltaic plants in Montalto di Castro (Lazio) for a total of 221 million euros from funds managed by Aream (see here a previous post by BeBeez), Erg has actually already reached its 2018-2022 Business Plan objectives in solar power in Italy and therefore the group’s priority will be to buy wind energy plants abroad (see the press release here).
