Anticipation

"This was an extremely competitive, fast-moving transaction for a much-coveted asset."
MÓNICA CARNEIRO PACHECO
Partner Energy CMS Lisbon

Novenergia is the holding company of one of Portugal’s biggest producers of renewable energies, Generg. It has 657MW in operation and 251MW to be implemented across several geographies. Its sale was preceded by a hotly-contested auction process  which started at the end of last year.

Three companies submitted bids for the company: North American fund, Contour Global; French corporate, Total; and First State Investments, which already owned Portuguese company, Finerge, the third largest portfolio of wind parks in Portugal.

A cross-border CMS team of lawyers from Bulgaria, France, Hungary, Italy, Luxembourg, Poland, Portugal and Spain advised Contour Global on the potential acquisition.

CMS Lisbon partner Mónica Carneiro Pacheco said, “We first started looking at this deal for the client in 2016 but it wasn’t until late last year that the auction process really started after an aborted transaction with Chinese energy company, Datang. This was an extremely competitive, fast-moving transaction for a much-coveted asset.”

CMS Lisbon partner Francisco Xavier de Almeida added, “In addition to the timing pressures (we had very tight deadlines for the different workstreams), the deal was complex due to the number of jurisdictions involved, the size of Novenergia and some contingencies that we came across during the course of our legal due diligence. We also needed to negotiate the share purchase agreement and undertake additional compliance and environmental and health and safety due diligence.”

Power from renewable energy sources met over half (55.1%) of Portugal’s electricity demand in 2018, according to data from the Portuguese Association of Renewable Energy.