Augusta & Co is pleased to announce the sale of a c.40% stake in an operating offshore wind farm in the UK to two funds managed by Macquarie Asset Management (“Macquarie”), on behalf of funds managed by BlackRock Investment Management (“BlackRock”).
The offshore wind farm is Lynn & Inner Dowsing (“LID”) and is located 5km off the coast of Skegness, Lincolnshire in England, and consists of 54 Siemens SWT-3.6-107 turbines. At the time of commissioning in 2009, the wind farm was the largest offshore wind farm in the UK.
BlackRock acquired its stake in LID in 2016 alongside the UK’s Green Investment Group, which was later acquired by Macquarie. As part of this latest transaction, funds managed by Macquarie will have increased their stake from c.60% to 100% on close.
Augusta & Co served as the exclusive sell-side financial adviser to BlackRock.
Karl Byrne, Director at BlackRock commented: “This was a complex transaction, and we were glad to have Augusta’s support. Augusta’s level of professionalism, attention to detail and ability to quickly get up the curve on complex issues set them apart.”
Charlie Hodges, Partner at Augusta commented: “This is one of the UK’s earliest commercial offshore wind projects and continues to perform well – testament to the design and engineering of these early UK offshore wind farms and the way it has been operated by its asset manager XceCo. Time will tell but we expect shallow, nearshore projects like LID to be prime candidates for repowering in future years. We congratulate both BlackRock and Macquarie on this transaction.”
Contacts:
Charlie Hodges CHodges@augustaco.com