Linklaters has advised a group of investors, consisting of Marguerite Fund, Siemens Financial Services, Industriens Pensions and PKA, on the acquisition of a majority stake in and financing of an offshore wind farm in the German North Sea. The Butendiek project will be built with 80 Siemens turbines of the SWT 3.6-120 class resulting in a total installed capacity of 288 megawatt. The wind farm is situated in the German North Sea, some 32 km to the West of the island of Sylt. The total investment volume is approx. € 1.3 bn. Project developer and remaining minority shareholder is the wpd-group. With its favorable site conditions including wind resources, water depth, distance to coast and grid connection, Butendiek is one of the most attractive offshore wind projects in the German North Sea.
Project debt financing has been arranged by KfW IPEX, UniCredit and Bremer Landesbank, in a consortium with European Investment Bank, KfW Förderbank, Denmark’s Eksport Kredit Fonden and further commercial banks including BayernLB, HeLaBa, HSH Nordbank, ING, Rabo Bank and SEB.
“The successful implementation of project Butendiek, including these kind of investors, is an important element in order to implement the energy transformation in Germany”, says Linklaters-Partner Thomas Schulz. Linklaters has special expertise in the fields of energy, infrastructure and project finance, advising with a group of experts consisting of around 40 lawyers in Berlin and Frankfurt. The team has, for example, advised on seven offshore wind farm projects.
The Linklaters team was led by Thomas Schulz (Partner, Corporate/Energy, Berlin) and Dr. Eva Reudelhuber (Partner, Banking, Frankfurt). Other team members included Dr. Timo Engelhardt (Partner, Corporate, München), Andreas Schaflitzl (Partner, Tax, München), Dr. Jörg Fried (Counsel, Capital Markets, Berlin), Dr. Markus Appel (Counsel, Public Law, Berlin), Dr. Sebastian Rohrer (Managing Associate, Corporate, Berlin), Judit Körmöczi, Dr. Jasmin Dettmar (both Managing Associate, Banking, Frankfurt), Dr. Claire Dietz, Christian Glenz, Dr. Jens Hollinderbäumer (all Associate, Corporate/Energy, Berlin), Tobias Chowdhury, Przemyslaw Lipin, Jennifer Khanna (all Associate, Banking, Frankfurt), Dr. Anna Burghardt (Associate, Public Law, Berlin), Frank-Rüdiger Schommer (Associate, Capital Markets, Berlin), Christian Juan Ebert (Associate, Corporate, Frankfurt), Stephanie Bruhn, Dorthe Bauer (both Associate, Tax, München).
