Contourglobal signs financing deal with UBI Banca for three Solar PV plants in Italy

ContourGlobal, a global power-generation company, has entered into a bilateral financing agreement with Ubi Banca for three solar photovoltaic (PV) power plants in Sicily, Italy.

The plants have been recently purchased by ContourGlobal from German industrial group Siemens.

The deal, which is designed on a 14-year non-recourse project financing structure, enables both the companies to raise their total shares of investment in the Italian PV sector to €68m.

ContourGlobal president and CEO Joseph Brandt said: "We are proud to execute this transaction with UBI Banca which has been our financing partner in Italy since our successful market entry in 2010.

"The transaction provides an attractive expansion of our Italian presence and increases our growing European solar asset platform to 69MW and our total global renewables generation capacity to 1,137MW.

"UBI has been our partner since our market entry in Italy and this is now our third consecutive financing with UBI in the Italian market."

Currently, ContourGlobal is involved in around 4,000MW operational or under development power projects across 20 countries.

The company has a workforce of around 1,800 people and operates a group of 61 different power plants including hydro-electric, wind, solar and biomass plants for generating renewable energy as well other traditional thermal power plants.

UBI Banca project and real estate finance head Lorenzo Fidato said: "Long term relationships with customers and support of sound business models are the main pillars in UBI Banca’s Project Financing strategy.

"The one just structured is the third deal with ContourGlobal LP, but we are confident about the possibility of further joint opportunities in the near future, given the quality of projects, operational excellence and international standing steadily guaranteed by this client."