The European Commission has approved the acquisition of the 396MW Merkur offshore wind farm in the German North Sea by Dutch pension fund APG and The Renewables Infrastructure Group (TRIG) asset manager InfraRed Capital Partners.
The Commission concluded that the proposed acquisition would raise no competition concerns, given the companies’ moderate combined market positions resulting from the proposed transaction.
The transaction was examined under the simplified merger review procedure, the commission said.
In December, TRIG and APG announced an agreement to acquire the wind farm, with the former owning 26% and the latter the remaining 64%.
Once the sale is complete TRIG will sell down a share to minority co-investors managed by InfraRed, leaving it with about 25%.
Merkur features 66 GE Haliade-150 6MW turbines and was fully commissioned in June 2019.
The wind farm’s current consortium of owners comprises of funds managed and, in some cases, advised by Partners Group (50%), InfraRed Capital Partners (25%), DEME Concessions (12.5%), GE Energy Financial Services (6.25%) and ADEME, acting on behalf of the French Investments for the Future programme (6.25%).