Glennmont completes £150 million refinancing of biomass plant

Glennmont Partners has completed the £150 million refinancing of the Sleaford Renewable Energy plant.

Located in Lincolnshire, UK, Sleaford REP is a 40MWe straw-fired biomass plant. In operation since 2014, the plant is operated by Burmeister & Wain Scandinavian Contractor (BWSC). It provides free heat to the local community under long-term offtake contracts.

Glennmont is one of Europe’s largest fund managers specialising in investment in clean energy infrastructure. The company raises capital to invest in alternative power generation projects, including wind farms, biomass power stations, solar parks and small scale hydro plants.

According to a statement from Glennmont, the proceeds of the Sleaford refinancing repaid a project financing, and contributed to directly creating value for investors.

The £150 million refinancing is the largest institutional-only refinancing in the UK biomass sector to date. Deutsche Bank acted as sole lead arranger, agent, security trustee and account bank for the transaction.

“Glennmont is delighted to be completing one of the largest biomass transactions of 2017 for £150m. This transaction further highlights that biomass is a highly efficient renewable energy technology capable of attracting significant amounts of long term, competitive institutional capital,” said Joost Bergsma, CEO of Glennmont.

“The refinancing complements our strategy of building portfolios of renewable projects diversified by both geography and technology in order to provide predictable returns to investors. The energy market is as diverse as it has ever been with new technologies and new market structures offering investors a wide range of opportunities to invest in clean energy.”

Michael Volkermann, Head of Infrastructure & Energy at Deutsche Bank said ““We are delighted to build on our close relationship with Glennmont Partners by together delivering this pathfinder refinancing transaction for the UK biomass industry and placing it with a leading European infrastructure debt investor.”