Gilkes Energy has raised more than £43 million (US$61 million) in a Debt Refinance of part of its hydro portfolio.
The latest six projects in the Gilkes Energy portfolio; Ben Glas, Kendrum, Pattack, Strathan, Loch an Laoigh and Uisge Dubh, all located in the Scottish Highlands and totalling 10.5MW, were included in the refinancing.
The loan was provided by Aberdeen Standard Investments' Infrastructure Debt team and includes both an index-linked and conventional tranche.
"Thanks to everyone who has worked on this complex refinancing. Our financing strategy was always to raise capital in two phases: the initial phase raised equity from our shareholders which allowed us to build our portfolio rapidly within the challenging time constraints of the Feed In Tariff. The second phase which we've just completed raised debt refinancing which provides us with low-cost, long term (19 year) capital,” explained Carl Crompton, Director of Gilkes Energy. “This two phase approach is superior to attempting to raise debt-finance for the initial construction phase which would be more expensive and slower. The net result is very low cost finance with interest rate certainty for the long-term. Some of the debt is index linked which allowed us to further drive down our overall cost of capital. The transaction demonstrates the "one-stop-shop" nature of Gilkes Energy - ie the ability to engineer and project manage high quality hydro projects on time and budget, coupled with the ability to complete a quite sophisticated financing transaction. The funding provided by Aberdeen Standard Investments will allow us to make further investments - either enhancements to our existing portfolio or the acquisition of further high quality renewable energy assets."
