Finerge buys five wind farms from Onex Renewables, which acquired them from EDP for 548 million

Finerge announced on Wednesday the signing of a sale and purchase agreement with Onex Renewables to acquire a wind power portfolio with a total capacity of 221.4 MW, located in Portugal and comprising five wind farms located in the districts of Guarda, Coimbra, Leiria and Viseu. The transaction is still subject to the usual authorizations by the competent authorities, the renewable energy producer said in a statement.

With an average age of 2.4 years, these wind assets are among the most recent to operate in Portugal, but are still covered by guaranteed tariffs for sale of energy to the grid (as part of the controversial wind tenders promoted by the government of José Sócrates).

Onex bought this portfolio from EDP Renováveis in 2021 (the deal was concluded in January 2022), and is now selling its entire capital, "with the aim of accelerating investment in the development unit between 2023 and 2025. According to information available on the Onex website, these assets are covered by feed-in tariffs for 18 years, and the amount the company paid at the time to EDP Renováveis to buy the five wind farms was 548 million euros, in a transaction advised by JP Morgan and Santander bank.

Read Also Finerge will build 15 wind and solar projects in 2023 With the completion of this purchase, Finerge's goal is to accelerate its expansion in the Iberian market (according to the plan of the refinancing operation worth E2.3 billion completed in 2022), "through inorganic growth that will increase installed capacity to 1.8 GW," the same document indicates.

"This deal puts us one step ahead in our strategic plan, made possible by the recent refinancing transaction. It will also complement efforts to build 'greenfield' [greenfield] projects, which will accelerate in 2023," said Pedro Norton, Finerg's CEO, in the same statement.

Recently, Finerge revealed to Negócios that in 2023 it will start construction of 15 projects that are already at an advanced stage of development, with a total new capacity of 335 MW. Nine of these projects are wind energy and six others are solar energy, with completion scheduled between the end of 2023 and mid-2024. In total, they will contribute to increase Finerge's installed capacity, which currently stands at 1,592 MW: 1,342 MW in Portugal and 250 MW in Spain. The company currently operates 70 wind power plants and 17 solar parks, in about 47 Portuguese municipalities and three Spanish provinces.

Read Also Finerge completes 2.3 billion refinancing and accelerates expansion in Iberia At the moment, the renewable energy producer in Iberia also has four wind over-equipment projects under construction, with 84.2MW of capacity, which will come on stream as early as the first half of 2023.

The sale of this new 221.4 MW wind portfolio to Finerge counted on Santander Corporate & Investment Banking as exclusive financial advisor to Onex Holding Renwwables, in what was the "main M&A operation of renewable assets in Portugal since January 2022", the bank also indicated in a statement.

Abdellah Belhadj Hamlili, director of Onex, explained in the same statement issued by Santander that "since the acquisition in 2021 [of these wind farms in Poirtugal], we have invested in several operational assets in the Iberian Peninsula and are currently fully dedicated to the development of our projects in countries such as Italy, Spain and Portugal, as well as in Central and Eastern European geographies."

Read also Finerge puts into operation the first wind power over-equipment project With offices in France, Dubai, Luxembourg and Iraq, Onex reports investments in Europe in the order of 600 million euros, a portfolio of 277 MW in the Iberian Peninsula and a pipeline of exclusive projects of 500 MW. It is a private holding company for investments in infrastructure, focused on strategic sectors such as energy, utilities, logistics, telecommunications and real estate.