Partners Group stated that the sale generated a return of 3.2 times the original investment in the solar assets.
The firm had in invested in the solar platform alongside Equis Group back in 2013. The investment was made shortly after the Japanese government introduced a Feed-in Tariff to encourage investment in the country’s renewable energy sector.
Partners Group and others initially invested $250m to fund the construction of utility-scale solar power plants in Japan. To support the building of the platform, Japan Solar partnered with Nippon Renewable Energy. Partners Group further invested in Japan Solar and had become the largest shareholder in the platform.
At the time of signing of the agreement with GIP, Japan Solar had 27 secured projects totaling more than 610MW in capacity, of which more than 200MW are operational and contracted into long-term power purchase agreements with Japanese electric utility companies.
Partners Group partner and private infrastructure Asia head Benjamin Haan said: "Japan Solar was a timely project and we are delighted to have contributed to the build-out of Japan's renewable energy production capacity.
“The successful sale of our stake in Japan Solar ahead of our original exit timeline provides an attractive return to our clients and endorses our strategy of platform-building in markets supported by transformative trends."
Stake sale in Japan Solar is Partners Group’s third infrastructure exit in this month on behalf of its clients. Earlier, the company agreed to sell its stake in Silicon Ranch, a developer, owner and operator of solar energy facilities in the US, to Shell.
Image: Partners Group sells stake in Japan Solar to GIP. Photo: Courtesy of dan/FreeDigitalPhotos.net.
