MUMBAI: Senvion, the German wind turbine maker, partly owned by India’s Arpwood Capital and US buyouts firm Centrebridge Partners has agreed to buy wind turbine inventory and the service operations of Kenersys, a company owned by Pune-based Kalyani Group, enabling it to expand the India presence.
Though the companies did not disclose the value of the transaction, sources in the know said Senvion paid Rs 200-250 crore for the acquisition of assets.
The deal will help the German firm, partly controlled by Arpwood, co-founded by ace investment banker Rajeev Gupta and his former colleague and ex-managing director of TPG Capital, Amol Jain, to consolidate its presence in India. Senvion, earlier known as REPower was part of Suzlon Energy and was acquired by a consortium of Arpwood and Centre bridge in a $1.1 billion deal in 2015.
Kenersys’ production facility has a capacity of 250 megawatts and has the potential to be expanded further. Senvion will be able to start its operations with the assets immediately after the closing of the transaction.
In February 2016, Senvion announced it was adding India to its core markets and appointed Amit Kansal, former commercial country manager at Vestas India as Managing Director of its Indian operations.
Kenersys is an integrated wind energy company that designs, assembles and markets wind turbine generators. The company is owned by Baba Kalyani and family and is not part of the flagship group company, Bharat Forge Ltd.
“The transaction will shorten our time-to-market in India rapidly and, secondly, we can build a strong base to further align the Kenersys products with our existing Indian R&D organization,” Senvion CEO Jurgen Geissinger said.
Kenersys’facility is based in Baramati in Maharashtra. The Kalyani group and US-based energy-focused private equity firm First Reserve Corp, which invested in Kenersys in 2008, had mandated RBS to find a buyer, but the process called off because of valuation mismatch.
The government has set a target of 60 gigawatts of cumulative wind energy installations by 2022, in a move to significantly enhance the clean energy drive.
Meanwhile, India’s renewable space has seen a spurt in the last 12-18 months. Last year, the sector witnessed 14 transactions including valuing about $2.27 billion, according to data from Venture Intelligence, a deal tracker.
Earlier in June, Tata Power acquired renewable energy business of Welspun for an enterprise value of $1.4 billion. Sun Edison Inc is looking to sell its Indian portfolio and has mandated Rothschild to run a formal process.
“The wind industry may see a spurt in the FY17 Capex, as most IPPs speed up execution to meet the Mar’17 deadline, when tax benefits of accelerated depreciation (AD) and generation based incentives (GBI) expire,”JM Financial said in a note in July.
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Source: Economic Times
