Italy’s Falck Renewables will sell its founding family’s 60% holding in the company to an investment vehicle run by JPMorgan Chase & Co, in a deal valuing the company at nearly $3 billion.
Shares in Falck Renewables rose as much as 15% in Milan after adding more than 3% on Tuesday, when Bloomberg reported the family was weighing options for its stake.
Falck Renewables will sell the holding to JPMorgan’s Infrastructure Investments Fund, according to a statement.
The price of 8.81 euros ($10.25) per share, a premium of 29.2% to the 3-month volume weighted average share price, values the full company at just below $3 billion.
The agreement will trigger a mandatory cash tender offer at closing.
IIF will partner with Falck Renewables “to accelerate its growth plan and reinforce its leadership position in the renewable energy sector,” the Italian company said in the statement.
The Falcks are among Italy’s oldest industrial dynasties, with a history in the steel industry dating back to the early 1900s.
Their first plant, at Sesto San Giovanni near to Milan, was one of the country’s most iconic industrial sites until its closure in the 1990s.
Demand for renewable-energy assets has soared in recent years, with infrastructure funds and strategic investors spending billions of dollars to gain exposure to the sector.
The value of deals involving alternative energy companies has more than doubled this year to an annual record of $92 billion, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
A dearth of sizeable investment opportunities has propelled valuations higher. Orsted, the world’s biggest developer of offshore wind farms, this month agreed to sell a 50% stake in a facility it’s developing off the coast of Germany to Nuveen’s Glennmont Partners for about 9 billion Danish kroner ($1.4 billion).
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