MERGERS & ACQUISITIONS, ADVISORY, AND EQUITY CAPITAL RAISING
Augusta provides M&A, equity capital raising and financial advisory services to its clients across Europe, including developers, IPPs, utilities, industrial companies and investment funds. We help them buy and sell asset portfolios, merge, raise new capital, structure partnerships, JVs and framework agreements.
In addition, we provide a full range of transaction and financial advisory services.
We have worked extensively on each of the phases of the renewable energy project lifecycle, including development, construction and operation. Building or unlocking value at each of these phases requires very different expertise. For example, demonstrating the value creation of a management team, optimising the contracting structures of projects that are ready-to-build, or arguing for the life extension or re-powering potential of a mature operating portfolio.
DEBT FINANCING
Augusta covers the project finance requirements of its clients on all projects.
This can involve just advice on, or the adaptation of, the optimal debt structure in an M&A or capital raising process or can be a full debt raising process itself as a stand-alone mandate.
On financing mandates, we work to ensure optimal alignment between PPAs (or other offtake arrangements), the financing and equity to maximise value for sponsors. We can access the full range of finance sources from bank lenders, through dedicated debt funds to mezzanine and structured finance vehicles.
POWER PURCHASE AGREEMENTS
As part of its capital raising or M&A mandates, Augusta has sourced and negotiated PPAs with a broad range of offtakers, from utilities through market-makers to corporates seeking green branding opportunities and industrials looking for long-term power contracts.
These services are most relevant in ex-subsidy markets such as the UK or markets where there is a substantial merchant component to a project’s power offtake that needs to be contracted in order to secure the best terms from equity and debt.
We have been leading the development of the industry away from subsidies and into the corporate power purchase market for a number of years and have worked on projects with offtakers including Google, Facebook, Norsk Hydro, Alcoa, Neste and others.
SPECIALISED CONSULTANCY WORK ON SPECIFIC TRANSACTIONS
Augusta provides specialised consultancy services to its clients primarily geared to specific equity or debt financing issues, the assessment of commercial market strengths and the potential for growth through mergers and acquisitions or other corporate finance measures. In most cases such a consultancy mandate is the pre-cursor to a strategic sale mandate at a later date.
Our consultancy activities complement and extend the detailed technical and management consultancy services provided by well-established consultancy groups, with many of whom we cooperate closely to provide a complete picture of a market and its plausible points of entry.
We recently conducted a detailed European country-by-country market analysis of independent onshore wind developers for a Far Eastern client, assessing the relative attractions of different markets, the strengths of selected players and providing a range of potential acquisition candidates.
We have also recently conducted a comprehensive analysis of the offshore wind installation vessel market, assessing the levels of profitability, supply and demand characteristics and trends, as well as leading market player evaluation for each individual segment of this specialised but growing market.