Swiss manager targets €500 million for new renewables fund

Swiss asset manager re:cap global investors has launched a new renewable energy fund for OECD countries targeting €500 million.

RE Infrastructure Opportunities has already secured funds from two investors and sealed its first deal last month with the acquisition of eight Danish solar parks with a capacity of 70.5MW from European Energy.

The vehicle is re:cap’s third fund and is significantly larger in size and broader in strategy. The group’s first fund – Solar Infrastructure I – was closed in 2013 on €147 million and invests solely in German solar parks and has a portfolio of 285MW. Its second fund – Wind Infrastructure I – remains open and has a current size of about €200 million. Roughly 70 percent of its capital is invested in German onshore windfarms, with a portfolio of about 279MW.

“The previous funds put many eggs in one basket”, Thomas Seibel, chief executive of re:cap, told Infrastructure Investor. “We want to reduce the risk of the fund investor and diversify the fund’s range of technologies and geographies.”

Seibel said the funds garnered to date total less than €100 million and that re:cap expects the fundraising period to last between three and four years.

The fund is planning to invest in “selected OECD countries” and will primarily acquire solar, wind and hydropower projects, with about 10 investments planned targeting 6 percent return across its 15-year lifetime. However, re:cap says it will begin to look at battery storage and energy efficiency projects beginning next year. Seibel added that it will target both greenfield and brownfield projects and revealed re:cap is looking at potential solar deals in Australia and Canada.

Re:cap has about 564MW of renewable energy assets under management with a transaction volume of about €1 billion.