Repsol's board of directors, meeting this Thursday in an extraordinary session, has given free rein to the sale of 25% of the renewables business to Prédica (a subsidiary of Credit Agricole) and the Swiss fund Energy Infrastructure Partners, as the company has just announced chaired by Antoni Brufau in a relevant event submitted to the National Securities Market Commission (CNMV).
The operation will involve a cash payment in favor of Repsol of 905 million euros. The new partners of the Spanish oil company also assume the debt linked to that 25% of the capital, which, together with the participation of minority shareholders, means valuing Repsol's renewable energy business as a whole at 4,383 million euros. In other words, it is in the highest part of the ranges that financial analysts have been handling in recent weeks.
Repsol's renewables business has a portfolio of 1.6 gigawatts (GW) of capacity and, according to the company's latest business plan, aims to grow to 6 GW in 2025 and reach 20 in 2030.
In this strategic plan, communicated in November 2020, Repsol gave itself a period of 18 months to sell a minority stake in the renewables business or take it public. A challenge that is fulfilled this Thursday with the operation announced this Thursday.
Last Tuesday it was also known that Repsol is studying a similar operation with the exploration and production business (Upstream). As reported by the Reuters agency, the interested party would be the EIG fund, which in its offer would have valued the division between 14,000 and 18,000 million euros.
In a statement to the (CNMV), Repsol acknowledged that it is "analyzing various opportunities and proposals related to said business, without any decision being made in this regard."
In fact, Repsol has already applied this formula of incorporating partners with a minority stake in some of its renewable projects. Thus, last March it entered the TRIG fund (InfraRed) as a 49% partner in the Valdesolar photovoltaic plant or in November last year it reached an agreement with Pontegadea (Amancio Ortega) as a partner, also 49% %, at the Delta wind farm.
Outside the Iberian Peninsula, Repsol formalized its entry into the United States renewable market last year with the purchase of 40% of Hecate Energy, a company specializing in photovoltaic projects and batteries for energy storage, with a broad portfolio that adds more of 40 GW.
In Chile, through the 'joint venture' with Grupo Ibereólica Renovables, Repsol also has access to a joint portfolio of solar and wind assets in operation, construction or advanced development of more than 1,600 megawatts (MW), with the possibility of exceeding 2,600 MW in 2030.
