International law firm Watson Farley & Williams (“WFW“) advised PNE WIND AG (“PNE“) on its sale of 80% of the shares in its 142 MW wind farm portfolio to a fund managed by Allianz Global Investors GmbH (“AllianzGI”). With a total enterprise value exceeding € 330m, the transaction is the largest wind farm sale in PNE’s history. The remaining 20% stake in the wind farm portfolio will continue to be held by PNE, so that it will benefit from long-term sustainable earnings amounting to a double-digit million figure from the ongoing operation and operational management (carried on by PNE) of the wind farms. The completion of the acquisition is subject to merger control clearance, which is expected to be provided by the end of the year. As part of the transaction, the fund also acquired an option for a 10 MW wind farm, which is currently in the permitting process. The wind farms in the portfolio produce enough environmentally-friendly energy to supply approximately 125,000 four person households.
Cuxhaven-based PNE plans and develops onshore and offshore wind farm projects and to date has successfully developed wind farms with a combined capacity of more than 2,000 MW. The buyer is a subsidiary of the energy and infrastructure fund Allianz Renewable Energy Fund II, which is managed by AllianzGI.
The WFW Hamburg team advising PNE was led by corporate/energy Partner Dr Malte Jordan. He was supported by Hamburg Partners Dr Christine Bader (competition), Dr Andreas Wiegreffe (employment) and Gerrit Bartsch (tax). They were assisted by Senior Associate Dr Wolfram Böge (corporate/energy; joint lead with Dr Malte Jordan) and Associates Dr Nicolaj Faigle (tax), Dr Matthias J. Annweiler and Christian Schindler (both corporate/energy). Dr Jan Messer (head of legal) and Eva Schweikardt (co-head of legal) acted as in-house counsel for PNE on the transaction.
Lead partner Dr Malte Jordan commented: “We are delighted to have advised our long-standing client PNE on this groundbreaking transaction. The smooth progress of this deal was thanks to the long term relationship and experience of working together between the WFW and PNE in-house teams. This transaction demonstrates the trend towards comprehensive portfolio acquisitions in the onshore wind sector and WFW’s leading position in this market”.
