Gravis Capital Partners acts as lender on waste to energy refinancing

GCP Infrastructure Investments Limited, the UK's only listed infrastructure fund focused primarily on investments in UK infrastructure debt, has announced the completion on 20^th August 2015 of a transaction to refinance Agrivert's existing waste-to-energy portfolio.

The investment means subscribing for a loan note with a term of 17 years and a value of up to £62.9 million. The company will advance £36.6 million at completion and the remainder is expected to be drawn down over the next few months subject to various conditions.

The loan note will be issued by GCP Biomass 5 Limited and the proceeds used to provide a loan secured on a senior basis against a portfolio of 5 anaerobic digestion assets owned by Agrivert Limited, a market leading builder and operator of Anaerobic Digestion plants. Investment by the Company in each of the Projects will remain subject to each receiving government subsidies, either in the form of the Feed-in Tariff (FIT) scheme or Renewable Obligation Certificates (ROCs), which inflate at RPI.

The acquisition of the notes has been financed from a drawing under GCP's revolving credit facility.

Energy sector experts from Burges Salmon have advised specialist investment advisory firm Gravis Capital Partners (GCP) on the deal.

The financing that Agrivert has secured will refinance its existing waste-to-energy portfolio and fund the completion of two new 40,000 tonne per annum, 3.0MWe anaerobic digestion (AD) waste-to-energy plants based in Bridgend, South Wales and St Albans, Hertfordshire. Agrivert commenced work on both plants, which are currently under construction, during the summer of 2015, with a view to them being commissioned towards the end of next year.

Global law firm Reed Smith has advised new client Agrivert Group.