AREF2 raises €350 million

With the final closing of the Allianz Renewable Energy Fund 2 (AREF2) on November, the envisaged target volume of the second closed-end renewable energy fund of Allianz Global Investors (AllianzGI) could be outperformed by far.

Almost €350 million (US$369 million) will be invested in European wind and solar plants on behalf of institutional investors, including insurance companies, pension funds, foundations, churches and family offices.

Armin Sandhövel, CIO Infrastructure Equity, and his team have already been active, seeking deals. On early-November, they successfully acquired Bohult, their first project for the AREF 2 portfolio. The Swedish wind park is located in the province of Halland, has been operational since April 2014, has an overall capacity of around 13 MW and produces more than 40 gigawatt hours of green electricity per year.

Once AREF2 is fully invested, the Infrastructure Equity team at Allianz Global Investors will manage roughly €1.6 billion (US$1.7 billion) in renewable energy and infrastructure projects.

Armin Sandhövel is very confident about the pipeline of future projects:

"Wind and solar plants have been planned and developed on a large scale, and are now established, all over Europe. Against this backdrop, the secondary market of existing plants is becoming more and more important to us and we are currently seeing very promising acquisition opportunities in Germany, France, Great Britain and Scandinavia. So, chances are very good that we will be able to fully invest the AREF2 volume in a relatively short time as well, while keeping the project quality high.”