Emerging markets private equity firm Actis has announced it plans to sell BTE Renewables for USD 1bn to Engie and Meridiam.
BTE Renewables is the second-largest renewables company in Africa after Lekela Power, which Actis sold in March this year. And once the deal completes, Engie will own the company’s South African portfolio and Meridiam its portfolio in Kenya with existing teams in the respective countries transferring to the new companies.
Standard Chartered advised Engie and Meridiam on the deal.
Background to BTE Renewables
Actis established BTE in 2017 when it acquired the Kipeto wind project in Kenya while it was in development. In 2019 the PE firm grew the platform by acquiring BioTherm Energy, which is based in South Africa. Part of the deal involved rebranding the company to BTE, a company with a pan African mandate that focused primarily on utility scale wind and solar projects. Today, it has six operating projects that total approx. 500MW in generating capacity—five of these projects are in South Africa and one in Kenya.
The company also has a proprietary pipeline of projects which exceed 5GW.