Shareholders in Irish renewable energy group Greencoat Renewables have overwhelming backed a plan to sale up to 250 million shares in the company.
The group announced plans for the share sale earlier this month as it looks to provide the company with increased financial flexibility to take advantage of the secondary market for wind assets in the Republic.
The company raised €110 million in an oversubscribed initial placing earlier this month when it issued 110 million new shares as part of the plan. The net proceeds are to be used to refinance the company’s revolving credit facility, allowing it to make acquisitions while maintaining total gearing (currently 43 per cent) within the target range of 20-60 per cent.
Strong endorsement
Greencoat partner Paul O’Donnell described the vote by shareholders on Wednesday as a strong endorsement of the group’s strategy.
“Shareholders very much like Ireland and see the market as a growing one. They see onshore wind as making a lot of sense given how windy the place is, believe we have a robust regulatory regime and see lots of opportunities for growth with the new Renewable Energy Support Scheme (RESS).”
“The reason we’ve come back to market is we think that now is a good time to create more firepower for the company as we expect there to be a lot more activity over the next 12 months. We’ve signalled that we have a suite of opportunities that we are looking at currently and that we expect to grow and make further acquisitions,” Mr O’Donnell added.
Greencoat initially raised €270 million when it listed in July 2017 in an oversubscribed initial public offering (IPO). It went to market with 137 megawatts in terms of seed assets and has grown this by 40 per cent over the last 15 months.
“We’re happy with the growth we’ve seen to date and can see that the secondary market for assets starting to take off. There is going to be a reasonable amount of activity as developers and utilities have a need to recycle to invest in early-stage activities and we think that being local and being backed by the right type of long-term capital means we are well positioned to partner with them,” said Mr O’Donnell.
