Fundraising

Marguerite Fund in European deal spree

The vehicle has acquired stakes in a Swedish wind farm, two Portuguese biomass plants and an Italian telecom infra firm.

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The pan-European Marguerite Fund has added to its portfolio of capital-intensive infrastructure investments by acquiring a string of assets in Scandinavia and Southern Europe.

The fund, established in 2010 by six European public financial institutions, made its first investment in Sweden by purchasing the 46.8MW Grimsås onshore wind project, which will be built 100km east of Gothenburg. The project – the cost of which was not disclosed – will consist of 13 Siemens turbines. It is expected to be operational in the second half of 2018.

“We have been looking at investing in Swedish onshore wind for the last few years and believe this is the right project for Marguerite,” said Marguerite Adviser managing director William Pierson.

The vehicle also closed on two biomass plants near Viseu and Funda~o, in Portugal, which represent the fund’s entry into the biomass sector and its first projects in the country. Marguerite will hold a 90 percent share in the Central de Biomassa do Funda~o and Central de Biomassa Viseu plants, each with a capacity of 15MW, which are under construction and set to be operational by early 2019. FPT, a local developer, will hold the remaining 10 percent.

Millenium bcp and Banco BPI of Portugal, along with Spain’s Instituto de Cre´dito Oficial, will provide €80 million of long-term debt for the biomass plants. Further financial details were not released, and Marguerite had not responded to inquiries regarding the total size of the deals at press time.

Marguerite also joined with F2i, an Italian private equity firm, to acquire a 94.12 percent share of Infracom Italia, which owns around 9,000km of fibre-optic cable in Italy as well as three data centres in Milan, Assago and Verona. The fund owns a 20 percent share in the joint vehicle, which acquired Infracom for €57.8 million from Barcelona-based Abertis.

Marguerite, which now holds 15 investments across 12 European countries, is backed by the European Investment Bank, Paris-based Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations, Rome’s Cassa Depositi e Prestiti, Instituto de Crédito Oficial, Frankfurt-based Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau and Warsaw-based PKO Bank Polski.