Ashurst and Latham & Watkins advise on the nearly €700m financing of Verdalia Bioenergy
Verdalia Bioenergy Limited, a company owned by Goldman Sachs Alternatives’ infrastructure fund, has closed one of the largest financing transactions in the biomethane sector in Europe, amounting to €671 million.
The agreement will finance the acquisition and development of a portfolio of biomethane production plants in Italy and Spain, with an aggregate capacity of over 3 TWh per year, equivalent to the energy consumption of nearly one million households.
The total capital invested in the project will exceed €1 billion and will cover both the construction of new facilities and the acquisition of existing plants, providing Verdalia with the necessary resources to continue growing over the next four years through greenfield and brownfield projects.
The transaction has been financed by a consortium of international banks comprising ING, Société Générale, UniCredit, BBVA, SMBC, Santander and Sabadell, together with the investment groups La Caisse and Rivage.
Legal advisers
Ashurst advised Verdalia Bioenergy with an international team coordinated by partners Irian Saleta Martínez (Banking and Finance), Andrés Alfonso (Energy Transition) and Nicholas Pawson (English Law Finance). The team was supported by associate Ignacio Piñeiro and trainee Mercedes Fernández-Montes (Banking and Finance), as well as associate Pedro Díaz (Energy Transition). Sam McLernon, Stephanie Simm, Will Lotter and Georgie Willis from the English law global loans team based in Madrid. In the tax area, partner Ricardo García-Borregón and associate Enrique Muñoz participated.
Latham & Watkins advised the consortium of lenders with a team led in Spain by partner Fernando Colomina, together with counsel Luis Sánchez and associates Ignacio Sánchez and Lourdes Colom from the Finance department.
