The platform now comprises five sites in Croatia, generating renewable electricity from forestry and agricultural biomass. Collectively, the plants generate approximately 200,000 MWh of renewable electricity annually, equivalent to powering over 45,000 homes each year.
The platform’s existing plants are located in Gospić and Grubišno Polje. The newly acquired sites are located in Glina, Karlovac and Brinje, situated between Croatia’s highlands and central regions. These plants have been operating since 2017, 2020 and 2021 respectively.
All three newly acquired sites benefit from long-term feed-in tariffs and biomass supply agreements that are similar to the contracts the platform’s existing plants have in place. The plants utilize low-grade forestry biomass sourced from local suppliers.
As part of the transaction, each plant will continue to be operated by its existing team and will report to Laurent Sessa, CEO of The Croatian Biomass Platform. Ancala is working with the management team to further optimize the platform’s operations, create operational and commercial synergies across the platform, and explore opportunities to increase generation capacity.
The platform has also recently appointed Tihana Stupnisek as CFO to support the group’s expansion. Tihana was previously CEO, of Euro Cable Group, a leading manufacturer of low-voltage electrical wires and cables in Central and Eastern Europe.
Laurent Sessa, CEO, The Croatian Biomass Platform, comments, “This acquisition marks a significant step towards our ambition to build a leading renewable power producer in Croatia. The Ancala team played a pivotal role in identifying, managing and delivering the acquisition.
“We’re excited to work closely with the teams at each plant, share expertise and further improve the platform, playing our part in contributing to Croatia’s 2030 National Energy and Climate Plan to produce 36.4% of its national energy requirements from renewable energy by 20302.”
Chris Lee-Evans, Director, Ancala, adds, “This transaction more than doubles the platform’s renewable energy capacity and creates additional opportunities to capitalise on operational and commercial synergies across the platform.
“We are actively working with Laurent and the management team to integrate these new sites and explore additional bolt-on acquisitions to further expand the platform.”
The bolt-on acquisition provided a co-investment opportunity for Ancala’s institutional investor base.
Ancala has invested over €1bn in critical infrastructure companies operating within energy transition and renewables. This transaction marks the 24th bolt-on acquisition the infrastructure manager has enabled its portfolio firms to complete.
Financial details of the transaction are undisclosed.
