August 2020 - Astris advises Valorem on two portfolio refinancing transactions.

August 2020 - Astris Finance is pleased to announce the closing by Valorem of the refinancing of two renewable portfolios. Valorem is one of the largest French renewable IPP’s with more than 1.7 GW of renewable energy assets developed. Astris Finance acted as exclusive financial advisor to Valorem.

Project Elcano consisted in the refinancing of a 165 MW portfolio of 11 onshore wind assets and 2 PV assets in operation located in France, for a total debt amount of €300m. Société Générale, Groupe Crédit Agricole (including CACIB and Unifergie) and BPI acted as Mandated Lead Arrangers.

Project Clarence consisted in the refinancing of mini-hydro assets located in Guadeloupe, France. The Portfolio comprises 16 run-of-the-river plants in operation for a total capacity of 10.4 MW. The total debt amounts to €52m. La Banque Postale and BPCE acted as Mandated Lead Arrangers.

The two refinancing transactions were implemented in the context of the unfolding COVID crisis and reached successful closing in a very short time frame. The new financings present several important benefits for Valorem: maturity extension, lower debt service coverage ratio, replacement of the existing DSRA by an unfunded DSRF, and significant reduction of financing costs.

Over the past 4 years, Astris Finance has raised over 4 bn € of project finance debt and executed 15 large scale M&A transactions for a total enterprise value of c.8 bn € in the European renewable energy space.