Scottish Equity Partners sells its onshore wind farms for £50 million

Scottish Equity Partners has sold its portfolio of onshore wind farms for £50 million.

The deal covers 64 turbines ranging from single-turbine sites across the Orkney and Shetland Islands to utility-scale projects in Curraghderrig, Ireland and the Port of Tilbury in London.

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It marks SEP's second major energy infrastructure disposal this year, having sold Indigo Pipelines, the third largest independent gas network in the UK, to infrastructure asset manager Arjun Infrastructure Partners, in February.

Pensions Infrastructure Platform (PiP) has bought the portfolio including all five of the wind farm investments made by the Environmental Capital Fund, a specialist infrastructure fund managed by SEP .

PiP’s existing wind assets include Aura, one of the largest stand-alone Feed in Tariff wind portfolios in the UK, and Blyth, a minority shareholding in a 550MW 24 site wind portfolio operated and majority owned by EDF.

Peter Bachmann, a director in SEP’s technology infrastructure team, said: “We are pleased to conclude this sale to PiP. Over the last four years, we have added significant value to the portfolio through active management and a hands-on approach. We believe this is the appropriate time for our fund to exit and we wish PiP success in the future.”

Joe Davis of PiP said: “PiP is delighted to have acquired this portfolio as it further provides our pension scheme investors with long term, inflation-linked cash flows to be used to help meet their pension obligations.”

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The £50 million represents an enterprise value for the wind farms, which takes into account the market value of its debt and shareholders' equity. SEP was advised on the transaction by Pinsent Mason solicitors.

SEP has a 20 year record of investing in UK and European companies across a range of technology sectors and is supported by SSE plc, a syndicate led by Lexington Partners and Hermes GPE.