DLA Piper advises BASF on financing for its stake in offshore wind farm Hollandse Kust Zuid

DLA Piper has advised BASF on the financing of the construction of offshore wind farm Hollandse Kust Zuid (HKZ), which will be provided by a club of international lenders. This follows a transaction between Vattenfall and BASF under which BASF acquired 49.5% of HKZ from Vattenfall in September 2021, and a purchase of 25.2% of HKZ by Allianz Capital Partners, on behalf of Allianz Insurance Companies, from BASF in December 2021.

Once fully operational, the wind farm will be the largest offshore wind farm in the world with 140 wind turbines and a total installed capacity of 1.5 gigawatts. The Hollandse Kust Zuid wind farm will also be the first fully merchant offshore wind farm in the world which does not receive any price subsidies for the power produced. The project is expected to become fully operational in 2023. BASF is acquiring the electricity from the wind farm for its ownership share through a long-term power purchase agreement. It will enable BASF to implement innovative, low-emission technologies at several of its production sites in Europe.

BASF shares are traded on the stock exchange in Frankfurt (BAS) and as American Depositary Receipts (BASFY) in the U.S. The company has around 111,000 employees and is one of the leading international producers of chemicals, materials, industrial solutions, surface technologies, nutrition & care and agricultural solutions and a long standing client of DLA Piper. In 2021, BASF generated sales of EUR78.6 billion.

The international DLA Piper team advising on the financing was led by partner Dr Wolfram Distler (Finance, Frankfurt) and also included overall transaction lead partners Dr Benjamin Parameswaran (Corporate/M&A, Hamburg) and Michael Cieslarczyk (Energy, Cologne). Further involved were partners Gerard Kneppers (Finance, Amsterdam) and Mark Dwyer (Finance, London), counsels Dr Philipp Clemens, Cristina Helena Villafrade (both Corporate/M&A, Hamburg) and Martin Wilmsen (Finance, Frankfurt), senior associates Patrick Reuter (Finance, Frankfurt) and Christopher Ollech (Energy Law, Cologne) as well as Stefanie Postema and Daan Asser (both Advocaats, Finance, Amsterdam).