EGP and F2i to buy Etrion’s 60MW Italian solar portfolio

Ultor, a 50:50 joint venture between Enel Green Power and Fondo Italiano per le Infrastrutture (F2i), has signed an agreement to purchase the 60MW Italian solar portfolio of Etrion Corporation.

This will be for an initial cash consideration of €78 million (US$83.7 million) along with the assumption of €221 million of related project-level debt. There may also be further cash earn-out payments of up to €24 million depending on legal and regulatory proceedings.

Etrion subsidiary Etrion S.p.A holds a 53.4MW set of assets while another subsidiary Helios Ita runs a 6.7MW set. This comes to 60MW across 17 project sites. Altogether they produced roughly 102.4GWh of electricity last year.

Etrion intends to use the proceeds of the transaction to progress its solar development activity in Japan and to repay a portion of its outstanding corporate bonds. In Japan, the company has 34MW of operational solar, 9.5MW under construction and more than 250MW in its development pipeline. The firm also has EUR80 million in corporate bonds listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange that mature in April 2019 and pay 8% annual interest.

Marco A. Northland, Etrion’s chief executive, said: “Etrion started as a private solar developer focused on Italy and quickly became one of the largest solar power producers in the country through internal development and several acquisitions. Since entering Italy in 2009, we have collected over €47 million in cash distributions from these projects. We have executed across the full project lifecycle – most recently optimizing production, reducing operating costs and extracting value through refinancing.”

This month, Etrion completed the 24.7 MW Shizukuishi solar power park, which is located in the Iwate Prefecture of northern Japan.

Tags: ultor, egp, f2i, italy, japan, bonds