Grand Prairie Wind is the largest wind-power project in Nebraska. It is expected to increase the state’s wind-generated energy by nearly 50%. (Photo: Mortenson)
Allianz Global Investors (AllianzGI), one of the world’s leading active investment managers, announced that it has made an investment of over $400 million on behalf of its clients into the Grande Prairie Wind project (GPW). The GPW project is a 400-MW wind farm in Holt County, Nebraska – the largest wind energy project in the state’s history – owned by BHE Renewables, a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway Energy.
The project will increase Nebraska’s wind energy capacity by nearly 50% and represents the first project in the state for BHE Renewables. This is also the first infrastructure debt renewable energy investment made by AllianzGI in the U.S. market.
The financing consisted of unlisted bonds with a 20-year term that were privately placed with U.S. and European investors via AllianzGI’s established infrastructure debt platform. BHE Renewables will use the proceeds to reimburse the costs of the construction that began in 2015 and will be completed by the end of 2016.
“GPW is an excellent showcase of how AllianzGI can deliver value-added solutions to infrastructure sponsors through its established institutional platform,” said Paul David, Head of Americas, Infrastructure Debt at AllianzGI. “BHE Renewables was able to tailor the structure to their goals and close the financing under an expedited timetable through a one-stop-shop funding solution that matches the investment mandate of our long-term infrastructure investor-clients in the pensions and life Insurance industries.”
AllianzGI has been a provider of institutional infrastructure debt solutions to the European market since 2013, and entered the U.S. market in 2015. With the achievement of the financial close of GPW, the AllianzGI infrastructure debt platform has now made close to $2 billion of investment commitments to infrastructure assets in the US over a period of 18 months, with more expected to follow.
Filed Under: Financing, News, Projects
