(Bloomberg) -- Masdar agreed to buy Spanish renewables firm Saeta Yield SA from Brookfield Asset Management, as the Abu Dhabi-based company pursues ambitious clean-energy goals.
The United Arab Emirates is expanding rapidly into renewable energy, with Masdar announcing investment projects with Spain’s Iberdrola SA and Germany’s RWE AG at the end of last year. Masdar’s renewables business is 43% owned by Abu Dhabi National Energy Co. PJSC, or Taqa, which earlier this year tried to buy a controlling stake in Spanish utility Naturgy Energy Group SA.
The Saeta deal has an enterprise value of 4.8 billion dirhams ($1.3 billion), with Masdar investing 2.8 billion dirhams of equity. It’s Masdar’s second clean-energy deal in Spain in as many months, after agreeing in July to buy a minority stake in a portfolio of solar farms from an Enel SpA subsidiary.
By 2030, Masdar aims to have equity investments in 100 gigawatts of renewable power projects that are “operational, under construction or secured.” Last year, Taqa said Masdar may spend about $50 billion on solar and wind energy to reach that goal.
Saeta’s portfolio includes about 745 megawatts of onshore wind and solar power assets, plus around 1.6 gigawatts of projects under development across Spain and Portugal.
Brookfield has owned Saeta since 2018, when it took the Madrid-based company private. It was previously listed in early 2015 amid an investor frenzy for so-called yieldcos — a type of renewable-energy firm whose plants produce a steady flow of dividends and require low investment.
Bloomberg first reported that Masdar was nearing an acquisition of Saeta on Friday.
Mark Carney, chair of Brookfield Asset Management, is also chair of Bloomberg Inc.
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