RIVE Private Investment and Mirova acquire a 60 MW wind project in France from Nordex

The manufacturer will be supplying 20 N117/3000 turbines with a total capacity of 60 MW for the wind farm, split into two project companies. Installation of the turbines is scheduled for this summer with commissioning scheduled for around the end of 2018. The turbines will be serviced by the Nordex Group under a premium service agreement over a period of 20 years. This order was partially booked order intake in Q1/2018 by Nordex.

The project was acquired by RIVE Private Investment, a European private equity company dedicated to renewable energy and defensive private equity investments for family offices and institutional investors, and Mirova, an affiliate of Natixis Investment Managers specialising in responsible investment that manages three funds dedicated to renewable energies with equity of EUR 500 million invested across Europe.

For this operation, Jocelyn Dioux and Jean-Philippe Olivier from RIVE Private Investment leveraged their existing relationship with Nordex and a club deal was organized with Mirova for the acquisition and the negotiation of the debt financing with HSH Nordbank AG.

Jocelyn Dioux, Investment Director at RIVE Private Investment, explains: “This is another important step in our renewable energy strategy as Le Douiche represents our biggest wind park and allows us to reach the symbolic mark of EUR two billion of investments in this asset class. With offices in several European countries, RIVE will keep on growing in renewable energy through its equity and mezzanine funds and in its other private equity investments. We are very happy with this transaction and the partnerships with Nordex, Mirova and HSH, with whom we have been working for many years now”.

Raphael Lance, Head of Energy Transition Funds at Mirova, adds: “We are glad to partner with RIVE and Nordex, and to become majority shareholder of this sizable project in France, where we have been investing in the renewable sector since 2002. This is our third acquisition since the beginning of the year and we will keep investing across Europe in clean energy and storage assets”.

Patxi Landa, Chief Sales Officer of Nordex SE says: “We particularly like these sorts of orders as their complexity challenges many of our skills from project development to equipment engineering as well as long-term turbine service. The market in France holds an exceptional status in this respect”.