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Downing Renewables buys UK solar assets from Gresham House VCTs

Downing Renewables & Infrastructure is buying a portfolio of operational solar PV assets located in the UK for £12.6m in cash. The 13.0 MWp portfolio of two ground-mounted sites and approximately 1,600 commercial and residential installations benefits from high levels of feed-in tariffs and renewable obligation certificate subsidies. The vendors are the two Gresham House Renewable Energy VCTs which are in realisation mode ahead of a wind up.

The new portfolio increases the total number of DORE’s managed solar assets to about 4,800 with a total annual average production of 101 GWh. This rebalances DORE’s diversified portfolio after a spate of Swedish hydropower investments. The highly diversified investment strategy is designed to increase the stability of DORE’s revenues and consistency of income to shareholders.

DORE will remain unaffected by the UK’s Electricity Generator Levy following this acquisition, with the company still having significant headroom in the levy’s annual allowance.

Following this acquisition, Downing Renewables and Infrastructure has deployed substantially all of its remaining cash and expects to draw on its £40m revolving credit facility to make future acquisitions.

Dividend cover

In its last accounts, the trust said that, provided certain transactions it had planned completed, its target dividend of 5.38 pence per share for the year ended 31 December 2023 was expected to be covered by cash in excess of 1.4x and that the company’s dividends are expected to be an average of 1.6x covered by cash in the period 2024-2026. These solar acquistions were the deals that were being referred to.

DORE : Downing Renewables buys UK solar assets from Gresham House VCTs

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