Uruguayan wind energy trust raises $77.6 mn for project

Nordex

As part of efforts to build the country’s largest wind farm, the Uruguayan wind energy trust Fideicomiso Financiero Pampa has raised $77.6 million in two rounds of equity financing.

The trust sold $62.6 million of series B shares aimed at institutional investors at the Montevideo Stock Exchange on March 23. The offer was oversubscribed by about six times with demand at $368.9 million, Bloomberg has reported.

The trust is to finance the $321-million wind project in central Uruguay’s Tacuarembo department with a 15-year, $224 million loan from the German lenders KfW and BayernLB.

The project aimed to generate 142MW of power is expected to go into operation by mid-2016. Overall, it should eventually be supplying electricity to roughly 180,000 homes. The 59 turbines for the project are to be supplied by Germany’s Nordex.

On March 19 an offering of series A Shares for retail investors had attracted bids for $15 million.

The shares were to pay dividends with an estimated annual return of 11.5 percent over 22 years, and a guaranteed minimum of 4 percent, Uruguay’s state-owned power utility Administracion Nacional de Usinas & Trasmisiones Electricas, or UTE, said in a filing.

According to UTE Chairman Gonzalo Sasaravilla, series A shares saw a demand of $100.6 million while series B shares brought offers to the tune of $119 million from retail investors. The sums have been offered on both forms of shares although they do not guarantee returns.

Also, bidders for the shares included institutional investors such as banks, pension funds and insurers and their contribution totaled $250 million.

UTE will be contributing $19 million in equity to the trust.

Ajith Kumar S

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