Watson Farley & Williams (“WFW”) has advised ING Bank (“ING”) on a €30m financing for the Mezos and Pinvert photovoltaic projects currently developed by Valorem in southwest France. This is the largest photovoltaic portfolio developed by Valorem to date.
The two projects will have a combined installed capacity of 34 MW when operational, and form part of a larger 80 MW cluster in the region Valorem is developing. While Pinvert’s financing was wholly arranged by ING, approximately 40% of the financing for Mezos is being provided by local authorities and private investors.
ING Bank is part of ING Group, the Dutch multinational banking and financial services corporation headquartered in Amsterdam and with total assets of US$1.1tr. Consistently ranked in the top 30 largest banks globally, it is also a top ten European company by revenue. ING has been actively investing in the utility, power and renewables sectors since 1993. In Europe, it focusses primarily on onshore and offshore wind, photovoltaic, hydro and combined-heat power plants as well as power infrastructure projects.
Valorem is a leading independent power producer with a 450 MW portfolio of assets operational and under construction. Traditionally focussed on power projects, Valorem has been diversifying into the solar PV and, more recently, small hydro sectors.
The WFW Paris team advising ING was led by Partners Laurence Martinez-Bellet (Finance) and Laurent Battoue (Project/Recourse insurance policy) supported by Senior Associate Sébastien Hoff and Associates Yassine Allam and Léna Le Falher on the project finance aspects of the transaction. Senior Associate Antoine Bois-Minot and Associates Marine Yzquierdo, Michaël Haddak and Gautier Dupuy assisted on regulatory, real estate, recourse insurance policy and project contracts matters respectively.
