Antin Infrastructure Partners has agreed to acquire a majority shareholding in Blue Elephant Energy, a German renewable energy platform with around 1300MW of contracted capacity.
It will be the first investment made through the infrastructure fund manager’s Flagship Fund V, which began raising capital in the first quarter of this year.
Blue Elephant has a “proven and highly scalable” business model and the strategic partnership with Antin will allow the company to “drive organic growth and significantly expand its international generation capacity”.
The developer is expanding its development portfolio of solar and wind projects, while also exploring new opportunities in adjacent segments.
Felix Goedhart, founder and CEO of Blue Elephant, stated: “With Antin we have a strong and long-term oriented partner at our side with whom we will continue our development expansion into key priority markets.
“In addition, we are continuously expanding our internal development capacities.
“This will bring us an important step closer to the crucial goal of helping to drive the energy transition and creating a greener future.”
In addition to the management team, the founding and major shareholders Blue Elephant Venture GmbH, Jahr Assetmanagement GmbH and ATHOS also remain on board at the company, sending a strong signal of consistency and continuity, said Antin.
Stéphane Ifker, Senior Partner at Antin, said: “We are convinced BEE is only at the start of its growth story.
“The company is uniquely positioned to play a leading role in the accelerating buildout of the renewable energy infrastructure in Germany as well as other key markets in Europe and beyond, which is critical to meeting future energy demand.
“We look forward to working with BEE’s very experienced management team and our co-shareholders to scale the company into a leading renewable energy platform.”
The parties have agreed not to disclose the financial details of the transaction, which is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2022.