EI invests in wind energy
Warsaw, 2 February 2012 — Polish Enterprise Fund VI (PEF VI), a private equity fund managed by Enterprise Investors (EI), announced today the launch of Wento, an investment vehicle that will handle the construction of wind farms in Poland. PEF VI is set to invest around €40 million in the Polish wind energy industry within the next few years. Wento will work with developers of wind farms to prepare projects for implementation, and then arrange for the farms’ financing and construction.
It will use capital from PEF VI and bank loans to achieve these goals.
Wento has recruited a group of experienced managers from the wind energy industry. Their task is to select projects, coordinate due diligence, purchase shares in these projects, arrange bank financing and then supervise construction of the wind farms. PEF VI will provide Wento with the equity needed to build the farms. These will subsequently be sold to strategic or financial investors looking for stable, long-term profits. Wento is currently examining more than a dozen wind farm projects. On three of these, which have a total output of 200 MW, it is already in advanced negotiations and is performing due diligence.
“We have been analyzing the wind energy market in some depth for almost a year. As a result, we strongly believe that Wento has excellent prospects for robust development. In addition to its activities in Poland, Wento may consider entering other CEE markets in the future, especially the Romanian wind energy market, which also appears to be very attractive for investors,” said Michał Rusiecki, a managing partner at Enterprise Investors.
Wind energy is a young but rapidly growing industry in Poland that will enable renewable energy to increase as a proportion of total energy production, in line with EU regulations.
“Our analysis shows that the number of investors willing to engage equity to construct wind farms is currently insufficient and we want to fill this gap, at least in part. We believe that we can work with the developers to build wind farms with a total capacity of several hundred megawatts, thereby increasing the production of green energy in Poland,” said Michał Rusiecki. “In implementing the current challenges we will use the experience we gained when we financed Polish Energy Partners, a start-up that pioneered renewable energy in Poland. We also greatly value the experience of those industry experts who have agreed to work with us on Wento,” he added.