The First Green Loan of €1.1 Billion Was Made Available to Tages

A €1.1 billion green loan and a new fund, called Tages Helios Net Zero and dedicated to renewable energy, while the private debt fund, whose establishment was initiated a year ago, will also soon be operational. These are the news from Tages Capital sgr, a manager specializing in energy production from renewable sources, founded by Panfilo Tarantelli, Sergio Ascolani, and Salvatore Cordaro, who were later joined by Umberto Quadrino and Francesco Trapani.

The €1.1 billion loan, which complies with the Loan Market Association’s green loan principles and is the first green loan for Tages, was made available to Tages by a pool of eight banks, including BNP Paribas Italia, Intesa Sanpaolo, Société Générale, Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria, Bayerische Landesbank Anstalt, Banco BPM, BPER Banca, and CaixaBank, all acting as green loan coordinator, mandated lead arranger, lender, and book-runner. Intesa Sanpaolo also acted as depository bank and agent bank.

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The maxi-loan is divided into eight separate tranches

The loan was made to Ortigia Power 61 srl, a company indirectly owned, through its sub-holding Telkes Italia, by the Tages Helios II fund. The transaction, which was finalized last July 26, but was only disclosed last week, has already seen an initial drawdown related to the refinancing of debt connected to wind and photovoltaic portfolios already acquired, having a total installed capacity of about 202 MW. Further drawdowns of the credit lines are then planned for acquisitions of new portfolios of plants and also according to other perimeter needs.

The maxi-loan is divided into eight separate tranches, all maturing on December 31st, 2033, with the exception of the fifth (a revolving credit facility), which will instead mature on June 30, 2034. All tranches pay a rate corresponding to the 3-month Euribor plus 150 basis points from July 26th, 2022 to June 30th, 2028, 165 basis points from July 1st, 2028, to June 30, 2031, and 180 basis points from July 1st, 2031 to maturity. The first tranche amounts to 36.8 million; the second to 253 million; the third to 531; the fourth to 64.3; the fifth to 145; the sixth to 2.9; the seventh to 20; and the eighth to 47.1.

Tages Capital sgr and Delos Service (which currently manages all of the facilities owned by the Tages Helios fund and the Tages Helios II fund) were assisted by the law firm Gianni & Origoni for all legal aspects involved in structuring the financing transaction and related financial documentation. The creditor banks were supported for all aspects related to the structuring and documentation of the transaction by Clifford Chance as legal advisor, by Fichtner Italia as technical and environmental advisor, and by Aon Italia as insurance advisor. Finally, EY provided support for the review of the financial model. The law firms Chiomenti, Legance, Bonelli Erede, and Clifford Chance also supported the creditors of the companies, which, thanks to this transaction, extinguished pre-existing bank loans and leases. Notarial activities were handled by ZNR Notaries.

Umberto Quadrino, president of the parent company Tages spa and investment director of Tages Capital, commented, “This transaction has a threefold significance: it allows us to finance the recent acquisitions of the Tages Helios II fund on competitive terms, it provides the means for the investments needed to improve the performance of existing photovoltaic plants, and finally it makes available the credit lines needed to complete the investments of the Tages Helios II fund. We have also further expanded our network of Italian and international banking relationships, involving a cohort of credit institutions selected from among those that share our strategy of participating in the energy transition process in the direction outlined by the EU’s “Fit for 55″ climate package and the objectives of the Italian PNRR. This important operation, therefore, allows us to look with reasonable optimism at the next steps.”

And included among these is the second of the novelties that Tages has in store for the second half of the year. Indeed, Quadrino added, “In addition to completing the investments of Tages Helios II shortly, we expect to proceed with the launch of the next fund, Tages Helios Net Zero, recently approved by the Tages Capital board of directors. This is a fund with a total fundraising target of €750 million and which, unlike the previous funds dedicated to renewable energy, Tages Helios and Tages Helios II, will also develop green field projects, so it will not only acquire plants that are already operational and connected to the grid.

As a reminder, Tages Helios II had closed funding in May 2021 with €477 million in commitments, vastly beating its initial funding target of €350-400 million, thanks to contributions from the Enpam Foundation, Sara Assicurazioni, three banking foundations, family offices, and private professional investors. As for Tages Helios I, now fully invested, it had closed funding in January 2019 at €253 million. In total today, the two funds have renewable energy production facilities under management totaling 612 MW, including 80 MW of wind power.

Among Helios II’s latest transactions, we recall that last March it acquired from Athena Investments A/S, in partnership with an independent operator, 16 photovoltaic plants in Puglia, Basilicata, and Sicily for a total installed capacity of 12.5 MW. While in December 2021 the fund had taken over the entire photovoltaic portfolio of the NextPower II fund, managed by Nextenergy Capital. In detail, the Tages fund acquired 105 plants, with a total capacity of 149 MW, located throughout the country. The portfolio was built from the 21 acquisitions conducted by NextEnergy Capital during the fund’s investment period. Intesa Sanpaolo, Banco Santander, and BPER Banca partially financed the deal, providing a €240 million loan against a portfolio valuation of about €420 million.

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(Featured image by EdWhiteImages via Pixabay)

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