IDIA Capital Investissement, with three other private equity companies of the Crédit Agricole group (Sofilaro, Grand Sud-Ouest Capital and Nord-Midi Pyrénées Développement) took a €15 million minority stake in Amarenco. With this full capital deployment, the Crédit Agricole group becomes the first institutional shareholder of the Amarenco group, alongside the co-founding shareholders and Irish family offices.
Amarenco Group was created in 2013 by an Irish-French team of energy industry leaders who shared a common vision: solar will one day dominate the global power generation mix, not only as a peak load power source but also as baseload thanks to energy storage technologies. In fact, Amarenco won 90 MWh – the largest storage project in Europe – in the latest French call for tenders for long-term storage.1
From its global headquarter in Cork, Ireland, and its operational headquarter in South-West of France, Amarenco is today accelerating the deployment of its international activities, particularly in the Middle East and Asia-Pacific. With offices and local teams located in Muscat (Oman) and Singapore, the Group has built up a pipeline of projects under development and acquisition in excess of 2.5 GW.
The fundraising will contribute to financing both the group’s international expansion and the consolidation of its leading position in European markets, particularly in France and Ireland. In addition to its organic growth strategy focused on the agricultural, industrial and governmental segments, Amarenco will be able to strengthen its inorganic strategy focused on greenfield and brownfield asset aggregation as well as corporate M&A activities in all regions where the company operates.
Concurrently with this transaction, Amarenco also completed a strategic transaction: the purchase of Macquarie Capital’s shares in their Joint Venture holding a portfolio of solar projects, under development in Ireland. The group thus becomes a 100% shareholder in this portfolio of projects, part of which will be submitted to the next calls for tenders expected around the summer in Ireland. Amarenco is also in the process of finalizing the acquisition of an independent solar power producer located in the South-East of France and aims at integrating many more of such corporate platforms.
The company currently employs more than 130 people worldwide and plans to recruit around 20 additional employees by the end of the year, particularly in the field of project development, project management, M&A and project financing.
