(17 April, 2019) The investments in renewable energies by Commerz Real generated additional earnings of around 11.3 million euros – a surplus of some 10 per cent – in 2018. In total the 49 solar power plants and 11 wind parks generated 703,585,431 kilowatt hours of electricity, a volume which covers the consumption of about 225,147 households (according to Federal Statistics Bureau figures for 2016).
Commerz Real has been investing in solar energy under the CFB brand since 2005. The five current CFB solar funds are part of the entrepreneurial shareholdings and were issued through to 2013. As recently as 2017 they had paid out some 2.1 million euros more than planned to their investors. In 2017 the asset and investment manager also succeeded in entering the wind energy sector with the issue of the Commerz Real Institutional Renewable Energies Fund. This is structured as a closed-end special AIF (alternative investment fund) and invests in a diversified portfolio of onshore wind parks in Germany with a total volume of some 300 million euros for professional and semi-professional investors.
“We will continue to expand the renewable energies product class in our overall offering for institutional investors,” explains Heiko Szczodrowski, head of Asset Structuring Portfolio Management at Commerz Real. Thus, in 2018 the company issued an infrastructure fund through its Luxembourg-based company CR Fund Management S.à r.l. which intends to develop a portfolio of at least six to eight infrastructure projects. Around 60 per cent of the total investment costs are to be accounted for by the two sectors energy generation and energy networks/other energy infrastructure.
In addition, in February 2019 Commerz Real participated – together with Sweden’s Ingka Group – in the project company for the offshore wind park Veja Mate in the North Sea, with each investing more than 200 million euros as the largest shareholders in a consortium. With a total of 67 wind turbines and a total output of 402 megawatts this is the second-largest offshore wind farm in Germany and ranks among the ten largest parks worldwide. Other partners are funds belonging to the German investment company KGAL Gruppe and WPD Invest. In total the consortium has assumed about 80 per cent of the shares in the project company. Together with the borrowed capital the transaction volume amounts to approx. 2.3 billion euros.
