Written by Andrew Gonzalez
LondonOct 13 – Spanish energy company Iberdrola is considering selling its onshore wind farms in Romania and Hungary as part of a strategy to raise money to fund more lucrative renewable energy projects, two sources told Reuters.
The sources said the asset sale would be worth 300 million euros.
Iberdrola sells entire operating assets to investors at a lower cost of capital, in order to finance the development of new renewable projects and networks in its main markets: the United Kingdom, the United States, Spain and Brazil.
The sources, who requested anonymity, said that the sale is expected to start in the coming weeks, and includes six wind farms in Hungary and Romania with a total generation capacity of 238 megawatts.
An Iberdrola spokesman declined to comment.
Iberdrola, which has been an active marketer of renewable energy assets in Europe, recently sold a 49% stake in Germany’s Wikinger offshore facility to Energy Infrastructure Partners (IPE) for 700 million euros.
On the other hand, it launched in September the sale of a minority stake in a portfolio of 1.2 gigawatts of renewable assets in Spain, according to two sources close to the process.
The Spanish company announced in 2020 an ambitious plan to invest up to 150 thousand million euros until 2030, mainly in offshore wind farms and expensive electricity networks.
The company said in July it had invested €10.2 billion in the past 12 months, mainly in the United States, Spain, Brazil and the United Kingdom.
The higher level of investment leads to an increase in its net debt, which will reach between 45 thousand and 46 thousand million euros this year. Jose Sainz, Iberdrola’s chief financial officer, said in July that the figure did not include any asset sales.
One of the sources said that Iberdrola is expected to set a new global target for buying and selling assets on Investor Day in November, on top of the $2 billion target recently announced by its US subsidiary Avangrid.
(1 dollar = 1.0317 euros)
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