Watson Farley & Williams (“WFW”) has advised Commerz Real AG (“Commerz Real”) on the acquisition, via its impact fund klimaVest, of the 58.8 MW Kuuronkallio onshore wind farm in Finland from German developer wpd. This is klimaVest’s first Finnish acquisition.
Connected to the grid since 2020, Kuuronkallio is located in Kannus municipality in the Central Ostrobothnia region of western Finland and features 14 Vestas V150 4.2 MW turbines and a ten-year power purchase agreement for its entire energy output with a subsidiary of Google, which operates a data centre in the region. The wind farm produces enough energy annually to service the needs of 25,000 Finnish households, thus saving circa 50,000 t in CO2 emissions according to the EU’s Statistical Office.
Commerz Real is an international asset and investment manager and member of the Commerzbank Group. It focusses on investing in real assets such as real estate as well as solar parks and wind farms. In its role as leasing company of Commerzbank Group, Commerz Real offers tailored equipment leasing concepts. With its main office in Wiesbaden, it has approx. 730 employees and €35bn of assets currently under management. Its parent Commerzbank AG is Germany’s fourth largest bank and the source of almost a third of the nation’s trade finance. Bremen-headquartered wpd AG is a developer and operator of onshore and offshore wind farms and solar parks with 2,200 employees in 21 countries worldwide.
The Hamburg and Munich-based WFW team that advised Commerz Real was led by Partner and WFW Germany Corporate Services Head Marcus Bechtel and Projects & Structured Finance Partner Sven Fretthold. They were supported by Managing Associate Carolin Woggon and Associates Robert Nagy, Lars Hillmann and Marie-Theres Recifo. HPP Attorneys, Helsinki, acted as Commerz Real’s Finnish counsel, led by Partner Björn Nykvist.
Marcus commented: “We’re delighted to have advised Commerz Real on this cornerstone acquisition in Finland which strengthens their portfolio of assets in the important Nordic region, an area in which WFW has extensive experience and expertise advising on complex, cross-border wind energy transactions”.
