Sorgenia Receives a €50M Loan from Banco BPM with SACE Guarantee

Sorgenia spa, a Milan-based greentech energy company controlled since 2020 by the infrastructure fund F2i sgr, and participated by Asterion Industrial Partners, has obtained from Banco BPM an 18-month revolving credit facility for a total of €50 million, 80% assisted by SACE’s SupportItalia Guarantee.

The loan is aimed at supporting any working capital needs of Sorgenia, providing the company with an additional line of credit to issue guarantees to cope with fluctuations in commodity, gas, and electricity prices.

Corrado Nangeroni, head of large corporate at Banco BPM, commented, “We believe in the project and the vision that the Sorgenia group pursues with its business. For this reason, and given the context characterized by high volatility in markets and commodities, we have decided to support the group and confirm Banco BPM’s commitment and constant attention to companies and the territory.”

Nadia Prando, Sorgenia’s head of finance, added, “We are very pleased with the result of this transaction, which constitutes a further element of flexibility in our financial structure and sanctions the value that the financial community recognizes in Sorgenia as a key player in the energy market.”

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The new loan received by Sorgenia follows last February’s loan received from BPER Banca

In that case, it was a green loan on a project financing basis, for a maximum of €32 million, for the construction of a photovoltaic plant of about 30 MW in Grosseto. The new plant, which will start producing green energy in early 2024, is fully consistent with the goals of the company’s industrial development plan, which aims to build more than 300 mwp of solar power by 2026. The site will be able to produce 58 gwh of energy from solar sources each year to meet the electricity consumption of 22,000 households, avoiding the release of more than 28 thousand tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere annually.

Founded in 1999 with the spread of the free energy market, the company now has renewable plants under development, of which 17.6 mw will be installed in 2022 alone. F2i has a 72.4 percent stake in the group, with Asterion holding the remaining 27.6 percent. In 2022, Sorgenia reported revenues of €6.1 billion (up from €3.4 billion in 2021), EBITDA of €550 million (up from €444 million), and net financial debt of €394 million (up from €769.8 million).

F2i and Asterion won in December 2019 the auction for Sorgenia called by Nuova Sorgenia Holding, the company that controlled Sorgenia’s capital and whose shareholders were Banco BPM (33.2 percent), Intesa Sanpaolo, Mps, Ubi Banca, and UniCredit (16.67 percent each). The banks had become shareholders in the company following a debt restructuring process that saw previous shareholders CIR and Verbund exit the scene. The value of the F2i-Asterion deal had not been disclosed, but there had been talk of a valuation of around €1 billion.

Then in 2021, F2i contributed about 300 MW of wind power plants (through VRG companies) and about 70 MW of plant biomass plants (through San Marco Bioenergie, now Sorgenia Bioenergie) to Sorgenia. Sorgenia took over San Marco Bioenergie (Italy’s leading operator in the production of electricity from plant biomass with about 70 MW installed) and seven wind power plants as a direct result of the merger by incorporation into Sorgenia of the corporate vehicle Zaffiro, 72.4 percent owned by F2i sgr and 27.6 percent by Asterion, and which had been set up in October 2020 precisely to acquire Sorgenia.

In fact, when Zaffiro was established, F2i had subscribed to a capital increase, partly through cash contribution and partly through in-kind contribution. As for the latter, F2i had transferred to Zaffiro the controlling stakes held by the F2i vehicle ER 1 in seven former Veronagest wind farms and in San Marco Bioenergie spa and its subsidiaries. Those holdings were then merged into Sorgenia.

At that time, the Milanese group also obtained permission to build photovoltaic plants totaling about 2 MW in the areas of our CCGT power plants in Termoli (Campobasso), Modugno (Bari) and Aprilia (Latina).

Banco BPM has been quite active in recent months on the financing front. A few weeks ago it granted a €6 million loan to Cantine Ermes, a Sicilian wine cooperative, aimed at increasing the storage capacity of its prosecco. Previously, Piazza Meda had granted a €10-million loan to Giacomini spa, a Novara-based manufacturer of components and systems for the distribution of heating, air conditioning, and sanitary water for use in the residential, industrial, and tertiary sectors, intended mainly for the development of the group’s industrial investments envisaged in its three-year plan.

In February, on the other hand, the historic pasta factory La Molisana spa, founded in 1912 in Campobasso and specializing in the production of high-end pasta, had collected a €5 million loan for investments in the entire production process, including from the point of view of environmental sustainability. Even earlier, the bank led by Giuseppe Castagna had disbursed about €5 million to Mare Group, a company focused on innovation through new enabling technologies for the industry, to accelerate the development of Mare Wave, the multi-year growth plan designed to enable investments of up to €80 million.

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(Featured image by PublicDomainPictures via Pixabay)

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