Macquarie Capital – a global provider of banking, financial, advisory, investment and funds management services – has launched its Green Investment Group (GIG) in North America.
The platform will focus on asset creation in the renewables sector, including development, construction and operations. The North American launch builds upon the launch of GIG’s platform in Europe and Asia.
“The launch of the Green Investment Group in North America focuses our long-term strategic commitment to the renewable energy sector and strengthens our ability to develop and construct green energy projects in the region. Since 2010, GIG and Macquarie Capital have led investment in green energy projects valued at more than $20 billion,” comments Nick Butcher, global co-head of infrastructure and energy for Macquarie Capital.
Through the GIG platform, Macquarie Capital will serve onshore and offshore wind, solar, hydro, transmission, waste and biomass, and emerging asset classes, such as tidal, biofuels, energy efficiency, storage, low-carbon transport, smart grid and district heating.
In addition, GIG will launch Candela Renewables, a solar-focused team co-founded by Brian Kunz, CEO, and Nik Novograd, chief financial officer. Under the arrangement, Candela will develop assets exclusively for GIG.
“We’re delighted to back the Candela team, who have the proven ability to originate new large-scale solar projects and the expertise and industry relationships to ensure their commercial success,” says Chris Archer, head of Green Energy Americas for Macquarie Capital. “The arrangement, targeting the creation of more than 1 GW in new solar projects, enables us to deploy capital to utility-scale solar developments in the U.S., leveraging our balance sheet, global scale and capability.”
Further, GIG has developed, commercialized and reached financial close of Canadian Breaks, a 200 MW wind farm in Texas. The asset, featuring Siemens Gamesa wind turbines, is located in Oldham and Deaf Smith counties and connects into the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) electric grid. Canadian Breaks was fully developed by Macquarie Capital, which provided 100% of the sponsor equity. Macquarie Capital also acted as financial advisor and led the structuring of an energy hedge, tax equity and debt financing. Rabobank, National Australia Bank and Siemens Financial Services provided debt financing.
Macquarie Capital also recently created a new role pursuing opportunities in battery storage and distributed energy through the appointment of Greg Callman as global head of energy technology. Callman joined from Tesla’s energy products division.
