Australia's PE-backed PARF acquires domestic wind farm

PARF paid A$22 million ($17.4 million) for the project, according to a filing by the current owner, domestic electricity provider AGL Energy. According to the terms of the sale, AGL also agreed to a power purchase agreement with an offtake price of less than $60 per megawatt hour for the first five years and a put/call option for a five-year extension at the same or lower price.

The total development investment associated with Coopers Gap is expected to be about $850 million, and will be funded through equity from PARF and its partners along with a lending group including Westpac, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation and Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group. Coopers Gap will be Australia's largest wind farm on completion, with total generating capacity of 453 MW.

PARF was launched last year by AGL to bankroll large-scale renewable energy projects, with a goal of backing more than 1,000 MW of projects with a value of A$2-3 billion. QIC, an investment manager controlled by the Queensland state government, committed A$800 million to the vehicle alongside Future Fund, Australia's sovereign wealth fund, soon after its launch. QIC and Future Fund hold an 80% stake in PARF, with the rest held by AGL.

The partnership is considered a new way forward for the development of large-scale renewable energy infrastructure in Australia, where institutional investors have historically been reluctant to enter the space due to uncertainty around policy, corporate structure, and pricing as well as limited scale and a lack of GPs with appropriate levels of capital and expertise.

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• Topics
• Australasia
• Infrastructure
• Buyouts
• Australia
• QIC
• energy
• Future Fund
• Cleantech