Augusta & Co plc (“Augusta”) acted as exclusive financial adviser to Bard Holding GmbH (“Bard”) on the sale of its Veja Mate offshore wind project to Laidlaw Capital Group. The acquisition provisionally closed on 11th September 2014. The 80 turbine location project is located some 90km off the island of Borkum in the German North Sea and has an unconditional grid guarantee for 400MW.
Having originally been mandated in early March 2012, Augusta conducted a discrete placement process to secure numerous bids from interested investors. The environment for German offshore wind was extremely challenging with various regulatory changes, threats to the grid connection and legal challenges throughout the long placement process. Bard has been in a restructuring led by its main creditor UniCredit Bank AG who also effectively controlled this disposal. Augusta was brought in by UniCredit Bank AG in early 2012 to seek a buyer for Bard’s offshore wind farms and had previously advised on the sale of an unpermitted package of German North Sea wind farms totalling 240 turbine locations or potentially 1440MW on a 6MW turbine basis which closed in 2013.
Mortimer Menzel who led the deal for Augusta commented:
“This was once again a very challenging equity placement in German offshore wind. The specific legal and regulatory challenges weighing on this particular project made the placement difficult and lengthy. Nonetheless we are very pleased that significant investor interest was able to be generated and that the logical buyer was able to be found in Laidlaw Capital Group and congratulate both parties on closing this difficult deal. Now the challenge will be to get both this project and the buyer’s other project, Deutsche Bucht, to Financial Close as soon as practicable.”
This transaction closed in November 2014.