Advisory

Since those pioneering days we have sold or raised capital for over 9GW of onshore wind projects across Europe (as at March 31 2017). With detailed knowledge of the regulatory regimes as well as the local dynamics of individual markets, we have successfully closed equity investments and portfolio sales in all of the large and most of the smaller territories in Europe.

Whether a transaction involves a capital raising for development pipeline or the sale of a mature operating portfolio, the key strength which an adviser brings to a client is the ability to demonstrate and communicate stable, long term, equity value and defend that value through the due diligence process and detailed and complex negotiations with multiple buyers.

In less than 10 years, the offshore wind sector has evolved rapidly into a mature and profitable industry, with the scale and reliability to attract large institutional investors. Today offshore wind remains a fast-growing and increasingly global segment of the renewable energy industry, drawing on experience acquired from the North and Baltic Seas.

Augusta has successfully advised its clients on how to fund, finance and maximise the value of offshore wind projects, whether at the development, construction or operating phase. Effective advice in this large-scale but specialised sector entails a detailed understanding of complex interdependent elements: the legal and regulatory framework, technical analyses, supply chain provision, the project finance market and a changing equity investor landscape.

In terms of volatility, due to the “battery like” nature of reservoir hydro, capex replacement and general investment duration, hydro is a very specific asset class that requires a dedicated approach. The transactions are much rarer due to their geological constraints and they are very popular with investors due to the enhanced risk/return metrics. Augusta has developed dedicated hydro knowledge and technology expertise from these transactions.

Much of the M&A activity in solar PV represents the aggregation of smaller individual projects into larger centralised portfolios with the capacity to achieve economies of scale in both financing and O&M, and provide adequate scale to attract institutional investor interest. Augusta expects these themes to continue to drive solar M&A activity over the medium term.

Augusta has wide-ranging experience of solar transactions across Europe, including the disposal of a number of individual operating plants and portfolios in Spain and Italy; the disposal of a 200MW development pipeline in Italy; valuation and strategic advice on a 50MW portfolio of operating and development projects in Spain; strategic M&A advice on a multi-territory portfolio in France, Italy and Spain; a buy-side mandate for a 60MW operating portfolio in the UK.

We have brought the full range of our services to bear in a broad range of project types across Europe including biomass gasification in Estonia, and anaerobic digestion and landfill gas in the UK. The services we have provided include raising equity and debt capital, buying and selling assets and companies, and negotiating contracting structures.

To maximise value in the specialised field of wind industry supply chain M&A, Augusta is able to deploy a detailed understanding of the structure and dynamics of the industrial sector concerned. Having transacted in every renewable generation technology at a utility scale, Augusta understands the fundamental economic drivers of each and can better evaluate the growth prospects of the renewable assets on which the supply chain depends. In this way we adapt our specialist knowledge in, for example, offshore wind project sales to understand and advise clients in the offshore wind installation vessels space, where we have executed two large transactions.