SSE to sell stake in Scottish windfarms to Greencoat, fund for £635m

1st Feb 2019 07:42

(Sharecast News) - UK energy supplier SSE said it was selling 49.9% of its Scottish Stronelairg and Dunmaglass wind farms to Greencoat UK Wind and an unnamed UK pension fund for £635m.SSE said in November 2018 it would sell stakes in its portfolio of onshore and offshore wind farms, in line with its strategy to create value from development and operation, as well as ownership, of assets.The transaction is expected to complete by the end of March 2019 and SSE said it planned to use up to £200m of the proceeds to fund a discretionary share buyback. The remaining proceeds will be used to reduce net debt.Greencoat said it would hold 35.5% of the two wind farms for £452m, while the fund would take the remaining stake for £183m.The two wind farms will have generation capacity of 228 megawatts (MW) and 94MW respectively and load factors of 43% and 44%.Greencoat added that it was raising up to £131m through a placing to institutional investors at 127p a share, a 5% discount to its last close price, to repay or reduce drawdowns on its revolving credit facility.