Watson Farley & Williams (“WFW”) advised Banco Santander and Banco Sabadell as arrangers for a €130m bond issue by Q-Energy for the refinancing of nine Spanish photovoltaic plants with a total capacity of 26 MW. The transaction closed on 10 October 2019.
The bonds issued are subject to Spanish law and were subscribed by institutional investors managed by BlackRock through a private placement, and traded on the “Quotation Board” of the Frankfurt Stock Exchange.
Qualitas Equity, via its specialist fund Q-Energy, has invested over €4bn debt and equity into the solar sector globally, as well as developed over 2 GW of solar PV and CSP assets worldwide.
The cross-border WFW team advising the arrangers, was led by Partner Rodrigo Berasategui, supported by Senior Associates Álvaro Barro and Jacobo Hermidas. Frankfurt Partner Sebastian Wulff and New York Partner Steven Hollander advised on the German and US law aspects of the transaction respectively.
Rodrigo commented: “Over the last three years, the appetite for this type of financing structure has been growing in the Spanish renewables market, thanks to current high liquidity rates, increasing trust in domestic legislation on the part of international institutional investors and greater awareness of the structure advantages among Spanish energy producers. Bond refinancings will keep getting more commoditised, leading to a decrease in implementation costs. Having advised both arrangers and issuers on dozens of capital markets deals, WFW Madrid has positioned itself as the law firm of choice to provide complex cross-border advice of this type”.
Cuatrecasas advised Q-Energy.
