Airtricity raises €310m

The Sunday Times July 23rd 2006

Airtricity, the green energy firm headed by Eddie O’Connor, has raised €310m in its latest cash call — topping its original €250m target. This brings the amount of equity the company has raised during the past decade close to €450m, valuing it at €860m.

NTR, which stumped up €4.2m for a 51% stake in the company in 1999, will have put up a total of €352m by the end of the current round to maintain its majority stake.

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The billionaire businessman Sean Quinn’s Quinn Group, which purchased a 13% holding in the company two years ago for €35m, decided to sell its shares when NCB Stockbrokers started to carry out the fundraising for Airtricity.

“Technically, we raised €250m first, with NTR investing €127.5m and Ecofin (the UK utilities and infrastructure investment firm) coming in as a new investor with a 16% stake, for €122.5m,” said Andrew Ennis, a director at NCB.

“But because there was so much demand at the time of the placement of Quinn’s stake, a second round was launched.”

Airtricity plans to tap investors again next year for equity, before an expected flotation within two to three years.

Airtricity had 177MW (megawatts) of wind farm capacity at the end of March, mainly in the northwest of Ireland. However, it has 6,500MW-plus in development, 80% of which is located in America and Britain.