Italy’s Terra Firma sells solar platform RTR for €1.3 billion

Following news earlier this month that two prospective buyers – Italian oil giant, Eni, and Italian utility, A2A – had dropped out of the race to acquire RTR, thus leaving just two players in the race – Italian power utility, Enel and U.K. oil company, BP – Terra Firma has today announced Italian infrastructure investor, F21 has snapped up the 343 MW solar PV plant portfolio for €1.3 billion.

Cantor Fitzgerald, Jefferies, J.P. Morgan, UniCredit, Gianni Origoni Grippo Cappelli & Partners and Moroni & Partners advised on the transaction.

“Despite regulatory, macroeconomic and political challenges over the years, Terra Firma has worked closely with this team to create a business earning more than €130m of EBITDA in 2017,” said the company in today's statement.

Terra Firma began the process of selling RTR at the beginning of this year. At the time, Bloomberg reported that the company’s market value was estimated by Terra Firma at around €1.5 billion ($1.75 billion).

In 2011, Terra Firma acquired 144 MW of solar assets, which under the name RTR, it grew to encompass 334 MW over 134 sites. F2i CEO, Renato Ravanelli, commented that with the acquisition, its portfolio has now grown to 800 MW, which reportedly makes F2i Europe's third largest producer of electrical power from solar energy.