Balfour Beatty sells £40m Thanet wind farm stake to Equitix
Balfour Beatty has sold a £40m stake in its Kent wind farm business to infrastructure fund Equitix.
The struggling firm has sold an 80 per cent stake in the Thanet Offshore Transmission Project it bought just two months ago for £164m.
The wind farm, off the coast of Kent, is part of Balfour’s lucrative infrastructure arm which was the target of a £1bn bid from John Laing Infrastructure Fund (JLIF).
The sale of the stake “demonstrates the investment business’s ongoing ability to deliver significant value for the group” said chief executive Leo Quinn, wanting to demonstrate the value of its assets after rebuffing the JLIF offer and a string of profit warnings.
"This disposal validates the directors' valuation of the investments portfolio, which was updated last month, and clearly demonstrates the investment business's ongoing ability to deliver significant value for the Group. The OFTO sector remains a key market, which is why we have retained 20 per cent ownership in Thanet, and we look forward to working with our partner, Equitix, to ensure the long term success of this project,” said Quinn.
Balfour operates and maintains the wind energy generators offshore and onshore substations as well as the more than 50km of undersea cables under a 20-year license from Ofgem.