France-based private equity company Ardian Infrastructure has agreed to acquire a majority stake in Groupe Casino's renewable energy unit, GreenYellow.
GreenYellow's value is estimated at around €1.4 billion ($1.42 billion), Ardian said in a press release, without providing further details on the deal.
Prior to the transaction, Groupe Casino held a 72.3% stake in GreenYellow, while the remaining share was owned by French public investment bank Bpifrance and Paris-based asset manager Tikehau Capital.
“As part of the transaction, the Casino Group, incubator and reference shareholder of GreenYellow since 2007, will retain a minority stake and will remain a leading business partner for the company,” Ardian said. “Similarly, BPI and Tikehau, who became shareholders in 2018 when they identified GreenYellow's growth potential, will reinvest part of their proceeds in the company.”
In May, French financial daily Les Echos reported that French energy giants Engie and TotalEnergies had emerged as potential buyers.
GreenYellow, which recently raised €200 million of fresh funds, was set up by Groupe Casino in 2007. In 2016, the solar unit obtained authorization to implement the sale of power to final clients and power providers through its subsidiary, GreenYellow Vente d'Énergie. The company has mainly installed solar projects on the French mainland and in the nation's overseas territories as well as French-speaking Madagascar.
In 2018, GreenYellow and Engie set up a solar joint venture to develop PV projects for self-consumption purposes.
This content is protected by copyright and may not be reused. If you want to cooperate with us and would like to reuse some of our content, please contact: editors@pv-magazine.com.
By submitting this form you agree to pv magazine using your data for the purposes of publishing your comment.
Your personal data will only be disclosed or otherwise transmitted to third parties for the purposes of spam filtering or if this is necessary for technical maintenance of the website. Any other transfer to third parties will not take place unless this is justified on the basis of applicable data protection regulations or if pv magazine is legally obliged to do so.
You may revoke this consent at any time with effect for the future, in which case your personal data will be deleted immediately. Otherwise, your data will be deleted if pv magazine has processed your request or the purpose of data storage is fulfilled.
Further information on data privacy can be found in our Data Protection Policy.