The deal, the largest equity investment since Mainstream was formed more than five years ago, will give Marubeni representation on Mainstream’s board, assuming it gets shareholder approval.
Mainstream signed a $1.4 billion joint venture deal with private equity company Actis in June this year to develop 600MW of renewables projects in Chile. The tie-up was to purchase projects from Mainstream’s Chilean pipeline, which the developer continued to manage.
Mainstream is also developing an ‘energy bridge’, in which it hopes to export wind energy from Ireland to the UK from 2018, and it has won consent to develop the 450MW Neart na Gaoithe offshore wind farm off the west coast of Scotland.
Chief executive of Mainstream, Eddie O’Connor, described the deal as a ‘game changer’.
He said the investment would allow Mainstream to ‘focus on accelerating our project portfolios across a range of markets as well as entering into new strategic jurisdictions, which present strong value opportunities for our business’.
Marubeni owns stakes in a number of wind farms, including the Lakefield wind farm in Minnesota, the Raleigh Wind Energy Centre in Ontario, and the Gunfleet Sands offshore wind farm, off the English Essex coast.
President of Marubeni Europower, Hiroshi Tachigami, said the companies would complement each other as they seek entry into new market territories, deliver pre-consenting projects, and structure capital solutions.
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