Fundraising

Cubico buys 50MW UK solar farm

Located in southern England, the plant is the 11th project Cubico has bought from British Solar Renewables in eight months.

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Cubico Sustainable Investments has acquired a 50MW solar farm in southern England.

The Owls Hatch facility is the 11th solar plant sold by developer British Solar Renewables to Cubico, a renewables investment platform owned by two Canadian pensions, over the last eight months. It also ranks among the largest of the pipeline, the previous 10 totalling 120MW in capacity.

BSR will provide maintenance to Cubico's newly acquired solar farm, which is located in Herne Bay, in Kent. 

The project was financed with debt totalling £47.8 million ($62.3 million; €55.8 million). Hastings-managed funds provided £24.5 million in long-dated fixed-rate notes, and Nord/LB, who acted as lead arranger, provided a term loan facility as well.

In July, Public Sector Pension Investment Board and Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan purchased Banco Santander's stake in Cubico to give each pension a 50 percent interest. The investment platform launched in May 2015, seeded with 18 assets previously owned by Santander.

The company is headquarted in London and has regional offices in Milan, Mexico City and Sao Paulo. It has assets in operation or under construction in Brazil, Italy, Ireland, Mexico, Portugal, Spain, the UK and Paraguay. Last month, its portfolio capacity surpassed 2GW after it acquired a 67MW wind farm in Spain.