Actis to acquire Gestamp’s wind farms in Brazil

The London-based Actis agreed to buy 416 megawatts of wind parks, the people said, asking not to be identified because the matter hasn’t been made public. Most of the assets — more than 300 megawatts — are operating, while the remainder are under construction. The deal could fetch 2.5 billion reais ($761.5 million), according to estimates from Bloomberg New Energy Finance.

The acquisition would be Actis’s second in Brazil in less than a month. The firm acquired two wind complexes totaling 346 megawatts from the Brazilian developer Casa dos Ventos Energias Renovaveis SA on May 16. Terms of the deal weren’t disclosed, but people familiar with the transaction said it was worth about 2.5 billion reais. In March, the company finished fund raising for the Actis Energy 4 fund and stopped accepting investors after raising $2.75 billion to invest in electricity generation and power distribution in emerging markets.

Officials at both Actis and Gestamp declined to comment.

Brazilian markets were roiled last week after Prosecutor General Rodrigo Janot said President Michel Temer helped obstruct the ongoing Carwash corruption probe.

“There are opportunities in Brazil, even with the whole political instability,” said Helena Chung, an analyst with Bloomberg New Energy Finance in Sao Paulo. “Assets are cheap and there are companies betting on the country’s long term growth.”

Actis would have a total of 1,625 megawatts of renewable energy capacity in Brazil after the Gestamp acquisition, which would make it the second-largest in the country, trailing only CPFL Energia SA, with 2,054 megawatts operating capacity. The London-based firm created a unit named Echoenergia to control its recently acquired wind assets, and also has Atlantic Energias Renovaveis, with 652 megawatts of contracted assets, and a solar unit which controls the 211 megawatts of solar parks it acquired from SunEdison Inc. in March.

Gestamp, based in Madrid, also operates wind assets Europe, Mexico, Turkey, the U.S., and South Africa, according to its website.

The Riberas family, which owns Gestamp, hired Bank of America to help divest its wind energy business in blocks to maximize value, Spanish newspaper Expansion reported last month.