K2 Management supported Japan’s ITOCHU Corporation in its 22.5% equity interest investment into the 288MW Butendiek offshore wind farm – its first investment in European offshore wind.
ITOCHU bought the stake in the wind farm from the Danish pension fund administrator PKA for DKK 1 billion (EUR 134.5 million) in December 2016.
K2 Management provided technical and wind due diligence on the transaction, focusing on performance and technology, project life and long-term OpEx and O&M strategy.
Project Manager at ITOCHU Corporation, said: “This project represents ITOCHU Corporation’s first European offshore wind investment and K2 Management’s technical advice, financial insight and operational performance expertise was invaluable to us in this acquisition.”
Butendiek offshore wind farm, located in the German North Sea, has been operational since August 2015.
“Our core team consisted of experts with real hands-on offshore wind experience covering development, construction and operation of such projects – that experience enables us to deliver much more focused, value-adding supporting within the often short timescales of these transactions. It was great to work on this project again, as I led the lender’s technical advisor assignment for Butendiek when it secured debt finance prior to its construction,” Simon Luby, Head of Global Due Diligence at K2 Management, said.
Located 32km west of the island of Sylt, the EUR 1.3 billion Butendiek project comprises 80 Siemens SWT 3.6-120 turbines.
The wind farm has been developed and operated by wpd, and besides ITOCHU and wpd, investors include Marguerite Fund, Siemens Financial Services, Industriens Pension (IP), CDC Infrastructure, ewz (Elektrizitätswerk der Stadt Zürich – Zurich Electricity Works).