A fund managed by BlackRock Real Assets has completed the refinancing of five operational wind projects in the UK with ING Real Estate Finance.
The Dutch lender provided a £55 mln (€60.9 mln) long-term debt facility for the assets in the 46MW wind portfolio which are located throughout England and have been operational for three years on average.
BlackRock said that the projects benefit from a 15-year power purchase agreement and long-term operations and maintenance arrangements.
'We are very pleased to refinance this wind portfolio on behalf of our clients. This transaction represents our continued focus on enhancing the value of our renewable power investments, where BlackRock has over $2.5 bn of assets under management,' commented Rory O’Connor, managing director and head of renewable power for Europe at BlackRock.
'We are delighted to continue our highly valued relationship with BlackRock through the refinancing of this wind portfolio. The successful closing of this transaction reaffirms ING’s reputation as a highly credible bank in the UK renewable energy market and contributes to ING’s aim to be a leading bank in financing sustainable transactions for our clients,' said Diederik van den Berg, managing director and head of structured finance, utilities, power & renewables - EMEA at ING.
BlackRock has invested equity capital in more than 95 renewable power projects in recent years. To date, BlackRock Real Assets has a total invested portfolio of approximately 2.5 GW of generating capacity across wind and solar projects located in the US, Canada, Ireland, Sweden, Norway, France and the UK.
