King & Wood Mallesons (KWM) has advised on the establishment of Palisade’s Renewable Energy Fund (PREF) which has a mandate to invest approximately A$500m in the Australian renewable energy market, with a key focus on wind and solar assets.

Palisade has established the fund in partnership with the Clean Energy Finance Corporation who committed up to A$100m of funding to enable PREF to acquire and develop over 500MW of renewable projects over the next four years.

PREF is seeded with two brownfield windfarm assets in Waterloo Wind Farm and Hallett 1 Wind Farm and will continue to focus on construction and brownfield projects, as well as late-stage development projects.

The KWM team was led by Corporate M&A Partner David Eliakim and Projects Partner Roderick Smythe who were supported by Solicitors Mark Boyagi and Michelle Crocker.

“We are pleased to have supported Palisade on the establishment of this fund which will enable it to develop a diverse portfolio of renewable assets which will deliver attractive long-term returns,” said Eliakim.

KWM also recently advised QIC on its $800m investment into the $3bn Powering Australian Renewables Fund (PARF), a strategic partnership created by AGL to invest in approximately 1,000 MW of large-scale renewable energy assets and projects.

“We are seeing significant activity in the Australian renewable energy market. The establishment of PREF and PARF signal strong appetite from Australia’s leading infrastructure investors for the development of renewable energy projects and we expect this interest to continue as Australia aims to achieve the Government’s ambitious Renewable Energy Target,” said Smythe.

KWM has acted on a significant number of recent deals in the renewable energy market and has experience across acquisitions and divestments; project development; project financing and negotiating project agreements. Find out more about our renewable energy expertise.