German independent asset manager Prime Capital AG has reached a EUR 202mn first closing on its Prime Green Energy Infrastructure Fund, its first commingled product in the infrastructure space. The Fund focuses on wind-powered energy assets in the Nordic countries, with no reliance on government support and with the lowest levelized cost of electricity in Europe. The Fund aims to secure assets in their late development stage and exploit their full return potential by employing a value-add strategy. This strategy includes the optimisation of permits, layouts and technology, together with full contract tendering whilst striking the optimal balance between long-term financing and merchant risk.

The Fund has a cooperation understanding with Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energies S.A. (“SGRE”), a leading wind turbine manufacturer. Prime Capital will identify and secure attractive opportunities at an early stage, optimise all technical and commercial aspects of the projects, and capitalise on the technology and expertise. This approach was successfully applied in recent transactions – including Project Nordlicht, a 290MW project in Norway nearing commissioning and Project Stavro, a 254MW project in Sweden, which reached financial close last year.

“Our value-add strategy, coupled with the economies of scale achievable in the Nordics and the region’s excellent wind resources, enables us to achieve superior market returns to other renewable energy investments in Europe. At the same time, we are investing in some of the most stable global economies, with a strongly growing demand for electricity and ambitious climate goals”, says Dr. Mathias Bimberg, Head of Infrastructure at Prime Capital. “In the current economic environment driven by the Covid-19 pandemic, we can capitalise on the declining availability of long-term financing, and an increasing reluctance on the investor side driven by historically low power prices, due to our flexible value-add strategy”, he added.

Prime Capital has already secured three seed investments for the Fund, located in Sweden and Norway. The first investment is planned for shortly after the first close and will take Prime Capital’s Infrastructure track record to over 1.2GW capacity realised. Prime Capital is one of the largest investors in the Nordic onshore wind space.

Several investors have seeded the Fund and will join its Advisory Board. Amongst them, Siemens Financial Services, Siemens’ financing arm, and Nordrheinische Ärzteversorgung, the Doctors’ pension fund, who have both invested with Prime Capital in several Nordic projects before. “We are very pleased by the trust our investors have put in us, based on our recent transactions”, says Dr. Werner Goricki, CIO of Prime Capital. “Furthermore we are delighted to launch this strategy in a format available to a wider institutional investor base, for whom a diversified access to large scale projects of this kind has not been easily possible. Our recent large-scale transactions have brought together an international consortium of investors, cementing our relationships and setting the path for the Fund, as we have been able to deliver alpha, also compared to our competition.” Prime Capital intends to raise a total of EUR 500mn in subsequent closings. “With this offering we seek to satisfy investors’ increasing appetite for sustainable investments, with their search for attractive risk-adjusted returns.”

The Fund is the first infrastructure equity fund to receive a Second Party Opinion from Sustainalytics, a global leader in ESG research, ratings and analysis.

KeyFacts Energy: Renewable Energy news