Deal details: Renantis (formerly known as Falck Renewables) will acquire Ventient Energy to create a multi-gigawatt, integrated renewables platform that owns, develops and operates projects across nine countries in Europe and the USA. Both firms are backed by JP Morgan’s Infrastructure Investment Fund. The combined company, to be led by the Renantis CEO, will comprise 4.2 GW of installed wind and solar capacity and an 18 GW development pipeline covering onshore wind, floating offshore wind, solar PV, energy storage, and green hydrogen projects. Renantis holds more than 1.4 GW of operating capacity across ~70 renewable energy plants in the UK, Italy, the US, Spain, France, Norway, and Sweden. Additionally, the company holds a 17 GW pipeline including 8.6 GW of floating offshore wind projects in Italy and the UK. Meanwhile, Ventient Energy is a pan-European developer established in 2017, with an operating portfolio of 2.8 GW of onshore wind capacity in Belgium, France, Germany, Portugal, Spain, and the UK. The company also has a 1 GW development pipeline of co-location solar PV projects in the Iberian region.
Deal rationale: The merger consolidates two private equity-backed companies with the aim of capturing the full range of opportunities across the renewable energy value chain. The combined company will deliver customised energy management, asset management and technical advisory solutions across key growth markets in Europe and the US. The diverse geographical and technical characteristics of the renewables portfolio will help insulate the company from volatilities or headwinds impacting a specific region or sector, whilst benefitting from regulatory and policy-driven tailwinds such as the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), the $21bn EIB-EU budgetary guarantee and permitting reforms. Revenues from the ~4 GW of operational capacity will underpin growth while maintaining a solid financial profile. Additionally, the combined entity will be able to realize significant cost savings across its portfolio by leveraging economies of scale and series.
For JP Morgan, the move represents an effort to consolidate its exposure in the European renewables market and realize additional value through the development of a larger, integrated platform. Another major private equity investor that has announced a similar move recently is Brookfield, when it acquired KKR-backed Spanish solar developer X-Elio for $1.8bn in Mar’23.
The above analysis is proprietary to Enerdatics’ energy analytics team, based on the current understanding of the available data. The information is subject to change and should not be taken to constitute professional advice or a recommendation.
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