On Tuesday, it was announced that a consortium of Korean infrastructure investors have struck an historic deal—the largest-ever global renewables acquisition for that country—to acquire a 49.9% equity interest in a portfolio of wind generating assets in the U.S. heartland states of Illinois, Nebraska and Texas.
The buyers are a consortium led by Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power (KHNP), and including Alpha Asset Management, a Korean asset management firm that just launched an infrastructure investment practice last October; Sprott Korea Investment, the Korean division of global real assets investor Sprott Group; HANA, a subsidiary of Hana Financial Group, Korea’s fourth-largest banking group by assets; and Korea Investment & Securities, a subsidiary of Korea Investment Holdings Co. Ltd and the first investment trust company in Korea.
The sellers are Brookfield Renewable Partners and Invenergy LLC, with Brookfield retaining a 50.1% interest in the portfolio post-transaction.
The portfolio spans an installed capacity of 852 MW across four operating wind assets. These include two wind farms in the state of Illinois, the 218 MW Bishop Hill Wind Energy Center and 226 MW California Ridge Wind Farm, Nebraska’s 201 MW Prairie Breeze II Wind Energy, and the 207 MW Rattlesnake Wind Energy Center in Texas.
Transaction terms ascribe an implied enterprise value of $1.5 billion to these assets.
In announcing the deal on Tuesday, Alpha Asset Management CEO Joonhyuk Choi, said, “This is a success story for Korea and the Consortium. This landmark Korean transaction is one of the first major investments made by Korean infrastructure investors since COVID-19 and will be the largest ever renewable energy acquisition completed globally by Korean investors. We are pleased to be partners with a world-class operator and developer, and look forward to working with Brookfield to continue to grow our overseas renewable energy portfolio.”
Lead investor KHNP is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Korea Electricity Power Corporation (KEPCO) and is the largest electric power company in Korea, supplying 27% of the country’s total power consumption. KHNP’s combined energy portfolio includes 24 nuclear power plants, 35 hydroelectric power plants, 16 pumped storage power plants, and other renewable energy assets generating 27.9 GW of installed capacity.
