Omnes’ fourth fund exceeds hard-cap to close on €660m

French manager Omnes Capital has closed its fourth renewable energy fund on €660 million, exceeding its hard-cap by €60 million.

Capenergie 4, which had an initial target of €500 million, was launched in 2019 and reached a €380 million first close in January 2020, already surpassing the €245 million raised by its Capenergie 3 predecessor.

While Capenergie 3 was tilted towards about 60 percent of LPs based in France, the latest instalment is about a 50 percent split between domestic and international investors, Serge Savasta, managing partner, infrastructure, at Omnes Capital, told Infrastructure Investor.

Capenergie 4, which is replicating its predecessors’ strategies of helping developers become independent power producers, has already made seven investments, mostly in solar in Denmark, Ireland and Germany, as well as wind in Finland. With 10 investments envisaged, Savasta said the group will be looking for wind investments primarily in France and Italy.

“Developers want to work with us, and we have been scouting for years the opportunity to partner with developers in countries such as Denmark and Ireland, originally for wind,” Savasta explained. “Solar markets started to grow due to the decrease of the capex of solar and they needed capital and we were there. This is a situation we did not see in Capenergie 3.”

Capenergie 3 was comprised of a majority of wind investments, but Savasta predicts this vintage will be more balanced. He also believes the growth of the power-purchase agreement has helped the growth of solar.

“You have to predict the production and solar is more accurate than wind and is easier to predict for the counterparty,” he said.

Savasta would not be drawn on when specifically the next vintage in the series would be launched, only stating that “in a normal world”, Omnes would come back to market in 2024, although he said Capenergie 5 could come sooner than that. Capenergie 2, which has been fully realised, generated a net return of 15 percent and a net money multiple of 2x, while Capenergie 3 is generating a net IRR above 15 percent, Omnes said in a statement.