Augusta & Co acted as exclusive financial adviser to PNE WIND AG on the sale of its development team and pipeline of onshore wind development projects in the UK. The portfolio consists of 1,227 MW across thirty-two development sites in Scotland.
Having been mandated in late January 2015, Augusta ran an accelerated and targeted process in order to close the transaction in under five months by 12th June 2015. The overall value of the deal is approx. £103 million plus an option on a 70MW late stage development site. There was a significant upfront amount with the remainder as an earn-out from development milestones. Mortimer Menzel who led the deal for Augusta commented:
“We expected strong interest in what was one of Scotland’s last remaining large independent onshore wind platforms and are delighted to have been able to execute the transaction at a premium valuation for PNE in a short time frame. The uncertain regulatory environment and the fact that this was the first large sale of CFD assets in the UK made this mandate unusually challenging. We were of course helped by the quality of the assets, the extremely professional PNE teams in Edinburgh and Cuxhaven and a very skilled and responsive institutional buyer who knew exactly what they wanted and were able to transact on a complex, multi-stage development portfolio in record time.”
Augusta believes the transaction is the first large scale sale of onshore wind CfD pipeline assets in the UK and demonstrates that such assets have a value. It demonstrates that even in the face of considerable political uncertainty, renewable energy generally, and UK onshore wind in particular, is seen as a fundamentally sound, long-term investment.