International law firm Watson Farley & Williams (“WFW“) advised MPS Capital Services Banca per le Imprese S.p.A. (“MPS Capital Services”) on the €7m financing, structured as a project financing, of Italian renewables company Northern Star Energy S.r.l. (“Northern Star”), part of ESU Holdings I C.V. Group (acting as sponsor), in order to manage and refinance four solar plants with a total capacity of circa 4 MW, located in the Piedmont and Lombardy regions of northern Italy.

MPS Capital Services is the corporate and investment banking arm of MPS Group, Italy’s third largest banking group, created in 2007 via the merger of investment bank MPS Finance and MPS Banca per l’Impresa Spa, which specialised in project finance, corporate finance and special lending.

The WFW Italy team advising MPS Capital Services was led by Rome finance partner Pierpaolo Mastromarini, assisted by associate Anthony Bellacci and trainee Paolo Gallarà on the project finance aspects of the transaction. Partner Tiziana Manenti, assisted by associate Cristina Betti, advised on administrative law matters.

SIMM S.r.l., an Italian company specialising in in the design and realisation of PV plants, advised Northern Star Energy S.r.l. and the project companies. Renam S.r.l (Renewable Energy Asset Management), acted as asset manager, advised the sponsor.