French manager eyes €500m for next vehicle after exceeding fund III hard-cap

RGreen Invest is planning to raise its fourth fund following the closing of InfraGreen III on €307 million.

The closing slightly exceeded its hard-cap of €300 million. The fund manager has deployed nearly 75 percent of the proceeds in renewable energy projects in Italy, Spain, the Czech Republic and its native France, targeting net returns of 8 percent.

The fund had a target of €250 million and received a €50 million investment from the European Investment Bank. The French government gave InfraGreen III its Energy and Ecological Transition for the Climate designation, a mark of the French state’s commitment to the fund.

RGreen president Nicolas Rochon told Infrastructure Investor that the company plans to launch the fourth fund in the series this year. A first close for the fund, which Rochon said would have a target of around €500 million, is expected around November.

Although wind and solar energy form the bulk of the third fund’s portfolio, there is also room for it to invest 25 percent of its capital in storage and biomass. InfraGreen III is the first in the series to include equity, with its €62 million and €162 million predecessors focused largely on mezzanine debt investments, although the first fund had 5 percent deployed in equity.

“Five years ago, the market was driven by subsidies and we were not comfortable investing in equity,” Rochon explained. “Now we are really focused on PPAs and it is much easier for us to invest equity in southern Europe.”

Paris-based RGreen Invest has around €650 million in assets under management and has funded more than 1.5GW of power projects through its series of funds.