DLA Piper advises on acquisition finance of 4GW solar and power assets across Africa

DLA Piper has advised Rand Merchant Bank and The Standard Bank of South Africa on the acquisition finance provided to Seriti Green. This was used to acquire Windlab South Africa and the majority interest in Windlab East Africa’s 4GW solar and wind power assets. DLA Piper also advised the funders on the provision of shareholder funding to one of the shareholders of Seriti Green.

Seriti Green is a subsidiary of Seriti Resources, a broad-based, 91% black-owned and controlled coal mining company and the largest contributor of coal to South Africa’s electricity supplier, Eskom. Seriti makes use of industry-leading tools to rapidly identify, finance and bring into operation large-scale renewables projects, as well as contributing to the lowering of its own carbon footprint. A large portion of the 4GW projects (in South Africa) will supply the company with renewable energy to power its own operations.

Windlab is a global renewable energy development company with renewable assets of more than 7,000MW potential capacity across North America, Australia, New Zealand and, Southern and Eastern Africa.

Nick Goldberg and Jackie Pennington, directors in DLA Piper’s Finance, Projects and Restructuring team in South Africa, who jointly lead this team, commented: “It is a pleasure to be part of a transaction such as this that supports the governments’ calls at COP27 to lower global carbon emissions. It will increase the country’s investment into green energy sources and in the long run will have a positive impact, not just on climate change, but on the South African economy as well.”

The team was led by Jackie Pennington (directors and location head, finance, projects & restructuring (FPR)) and Nick Goldberg (director, FPR). They were supported by , Byron Bromham (associate, FPR) and Arnold Saungweme (associate, FPR).