A consortium of Allianz Capital Partners, Norges Bank Investment Management (NBIM) and AIP has progressed to the second round of bidding for a stake in the 960MW He Dreiht offshore wind farm.
The consortium is among a mix of strategic and financial investors likely to still be in the running for a 49.9% stake in the German North Sea project, which is being sold by German utility EnBW, sources said.
Non-binding offers were filed in July with the second, binding offer stage launching earlier this month.
While Danish pension fund AIP has made several historic acquisitions in European offshore wind, both Allianz and NBIM are relative newcomers to the sector.
Allianz agreed its first equity investment in offshore wind last year with the purchase of a 25.2% stake in the 1.5GW Hollandse Kust Zuid project in the Netherlands from BASF.
NBIM, Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, also recently made its first investment with the acquisition of a 50% stake in Borssele 1&2 from Orsted in 2021 for €1.3bn.
EnBW put the shares in He Dreiht on the market over the summer in a process code-named Project Razorbill, as first reported in the subscriber-only issue of reNEWS.
French bank Societe Generale is advising EnBW on the sale, with binding offers for the shareholding are due in late November with the sale expected to close by March 2023.
Construction of the wind farm is due to start in 2024 and will comprise 64 Vestas V236-15.0 MW turbines. Full commissioning of the project is expected in the first quarter of 2026.
EnBW’s trading arm is meanwhile offering to offtake power from the estimated €1.9bn development for the first 15 years of operation via a fixed purchase agreement.
EnBW and Allianz Capital Partners declined to comment. NBIM and AIP did not respond to requests for comment.