Intermoney | The renewable energy company (Buy, PO €15) announced after the market closed yesterday that its offshore wind subsidiary Ocean Winds (OW) has sold a 20.25% stake in a wind farm to Allianz Global Investors for around €200 million, which, according to EDPR, would imply an implicit valuation of €5.6 million per MW. OW is 50% owned by EDPR and ENGIE, and the Portuguese company consolidates it using the equity method. The wind farm, called Îles d’Yeu & Noirmoutier, is located off the French coast in the Atlantic Ocean and has a capacity of 500 MW, consisting of 61 Siemens Gamesa 8.2 MW turbines. The project is in its final stages of construction and has been partially operational since last June. Following this transaction, the project’s capital structure is as follows: OW (40%), Allianz (20.25%), Sumitomo (29.5%), Banque des Territoires (9.75%) and Vendée Energie (0.5%).
Assessment: As expected, valuation ratios per MW are much higher for offshore wind energy. Ocean Winds currently has a gross capacity of 2,344 MW, with an additional 1,014 MW under construction. In our valuation of EDPR, we have considered, perhaps too conservatively, a contribution from investees of around €1.3 billion, or just over €1 per share. EDPR, which has 660 MW of offshore wind power outside OW, will announce its 9M results next Thursday, 6 November, before the market opens, on the same day that its parent company EDP presents its strategic plan. We expect EBITDA to have risen by 4% to €1.352 billion, although, excluding asset rotations, growth would be above 20%, mainly due to increases in capacity and production in the US.
