Here is a piece of good news, just before the first semester of 2022 ends: we are delighted to report that -- for the first time since its creation over twenty years ago -- Astris reached the top spot in the 2021 IJ Global League Table for European Renewable Energy financial advisory.

This top position rewards an exciting year 2021 for Astris in Europe where we helped bring eighteen transactions to closing in France, Spain, Germany, Poland and Italy. These include a wide array of deals, both on the financing side (development stage advisory, debt and equity raising) with EUR 3bn raised, and on the M&A side (sell-side, buy-side, investor solutions).

Since 2011, Astris has built an unparalleled track record in the European market from its offices in Paris (2011), Madrid (2017) and Hamburg (2020): in the past 5 years, we have closed over 40 M&A transactions for a combined enterprise value of 10+ bn€ and 50 financing transactions with 9+ bn€ of debt raised.

The coming years will be fascinating when it comes to the European renewable energy sector. The “RE Power EU plan” published by the European Commission in May 2022 establishes a three-pronged strategy to drastically reduce Europe’s dependence on Russian fossil fuels: energy savings, acceleration of renewable energy deployment, and diversification of energy sources. Under the second pillar, the Commission increased the target share of gross final energy consumption from renewable sources to 45% by 2030 from just 22% in 2021.

This very ambitious growth will require reaching an aggregate renewable energy generation capacity of 1236 GW by 2030 – an increase of more than 700 GW compared with the installed capacity at the end of 2020. That is fully 100 GW per year! (Source: EU Commission, Eurostat, 2022)

This increased installed capacity will need to come hand in hand with new business models and technologies such as storage, smart grid, peak shaving and demand-side management, EV charging, hydrogen storage, etc. Astris hopes to do its share, however modest, to help achieve this existential challenge!

Thomas Innocenzi, Head of European Operations for Astris said: “As we continue strengthening our position in the European renewable energy space, we would like once again to thank all of our clients and partners for the solid relationships we have established over the years as well as our team for the rigor, creativity and energy deployed on every one of our mandates.”