Greencoat eyes €250m share raise to buy wind assets
RENEWABLE infrastructure fund Greencoat is planning to raise as much as €250m over the next 12 months as it looks to take advantage of an increasingly active secondary market for wind farms in Ireland.
Ireland’s first stock market-listed renewables firm, which floated last summer, is backed by AIB and the State’s Ireland Strategic Investment Fund (ISIF).
Greencoat Renewables raised €270m in gross proceeds last year from its flotation, including €145m from investors and an additional €105m from AIB.
“The company has a significant pipeline of opportunities to acquire wind farms in Ireland, and the company wishes to ensure that it is in a position to capitalise on these opportunities as and when they become available,” Greencoat Renewables said yesterday.
It already owns five windfarms in Ireland.
The company, which is managed by London-headquartered Greencoat Capital, launched an initial €100m placing yesterday.
The final size of the initial placing will be determined around July 24. Davy Stockbrokers and RBC Capital Markets are joint bookrunners.
The share issue requires approval from shareholders, and an extraordinary general meeting of the company will be held on August 1. The placing price of €1.01 represents a discount of 2.4pc to the closing price of €1.05 on Euronext Dublin and 3.6pc to the closing price of €1.063 on the London Stock Exchange last Friday.
Greencoat said that secondary market for wind assets here “remains very active”, with more than 4GW of assets on schedule to be operational by 2020. It added that during the past 18 months, over 500MW of operating assets have been acquired from a wide range of sellers, from large scale utilities to smaller local developers.
It said the introduction of the new all Ireland single energy market structure this October should allow the Irish electricity market to be integrated with a pan-European market, allowing larger volumes of renewable electricity to be generated.
“While the company expects to continue to expand its portfolio, shareholder returns remain paramount and we have a disciplined approach to acquisitions to ensure we continue to deliver a progressive dividend policy and an attractive overall return,” said Greencoat Renewables chairman Ronan Murphy.
More than 4GW of wind assets to be operational by 2020 in Ireland