Narrative
Full Description
Project narrative
On December 5, 2019, Palisade Investment Partners and First State Super entered into an agreement to purchase the Snowtown 2 Wind Farm from its owner Tilt Renewables for a consideration of $1.073 million AUD. The purchase was completed on December 17, 2019. To support this acquisition, a syndicate of six banks — including the Sydney Branch of Bank of China (BOC) and the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) — entered into a $869.2 million AUD ($604.7 million USD) syndicated senior loan agreement with A.C.N. 635 213 900 Pty Ltd — a special purpose vehicle wholly owned by funds managed by Palisade Investment Partners and First State Super — to support the $1.073 billion AUD acquisition of the 270 MW Snowtown 2 Wind Farm from its owner Tilt Renewables Ltd. The acquisition was made on behalf of Palisade's Renewable Energy Fund (PREF) and direct investment client Health Employees Superannuation Trust Australia (HESTA), with First State Super as a co-investor (33%). In addition to the Sydney Branch of BOC and ICBC, the following banks contributed to this syndicated loan: BNP Paribas S.A., Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA), ING Bank (Australia) Limited, Mizuho Bank, Ltd., and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (SMBC). BNP Paribas, CBA, ING Bank, and SMBC served as the mandated lead arrangers, underwriters, and bookrunners. The Sydney Branch of BOC, ICBC, and Mizuho served as mandated lead arrangers. Record ID#93355 captures ICBC's contribution to the syndicated loan. Record ID#93356 captures BOC's contribution to the syndicated loan. The Snowtown 2 Wind Farm was located in Snowtown, South Australia on the Barunga and Hummocks Ranges, adjacent to the Snowtown 1 Wind Farm, and consisted of 90 x 3.0 MW Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy turbines. It had a capacity of 270 MW, equivalent to the consumption of over 140,000 homes annually. It cost $400 million AUD to construct. It began operations in October 2014, with its energy contracted to Origin Energy Limited under a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) expiring in 2035. With the acquisition, Palisde Integrated Management Services (PIMS) was slated to provide operational management service of the wind farm; Tilt Renewables would asset in the operation of Snowtown 2 for six months under an Asset Management and Transitional Services Agreement from the purchase.
Staff comments
1. The individual contribution of the six lenders to this $869.2 million AUD syndicated loan tranche is unknown. For the time being, AidData has estimated the contribution of BOC by assuming that each lender contributed an equal amount ($144,866,666.667 AUD) to the syndicated loan. 2. The exact commitment date is unknown; "Palisade agrees to acquire Snowtown 2 Wind Farm" states that the syndicated loan was still under negotiation as of December 5, 2019, and it is known that the purchase was completed on December 17, 2019 (see "Tilt Renewables completes sale of Snowtown 2 Wind Farm"), so the loan must have been committed between those two dates. For now, AidData has coded the purchase date as the commitment date, and checked the commitment_date_estimated? field.