Blackstone Infrastructure Partners agreed Friday to invest $3 billion in Chicago-based Invenergy Renewables Holdings, the largest private renewable energy company in North America.
The investment, which Blackstone claims is one of the largest renewable investments in North American history, will provide capital to accelerate Invenergy’s renewable development activities.
Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, or CDPQ, and Invenergy management remain majority owners of the company and Invenergy will continue as managing member.
Kirkland & Ellis counseled Blackstone led by a Texas team that included corporate partners Rhett Van Syoc and Rob Goodin with help from associates Daniel Cadis, David Jean-Baptiste, Patrick Corrigan, Hunter Richey, Brett Mele and Austin Johnson.
Also working on the deal were debt finance partners Rohit Chaudhry and Jared Joyce-Schleimer and associate Leila Ravi; tax partners Mark Dundon, Michael Masri and Sophia Han; energy regulatory partners Brooksany Barrowes and Drew Stuyvenberg; executive compensation partner Jared Whalen; and capital markets partner Michael Rigdon.
Mayer Brown was legal advisor to CDPQ including Paul Astolfi, Susan Rabinowitz and Paul Crimmins in Chicago. The firm also represented CDPQ in its $1 billion commitment to Invenergy in 2020.
Sidley Austin and White & Case represented Invenergy, including Tara Higgins, Chaim Thiel, Chris Hale, Cammie Teo and Leigh Rorick from Sidley and Gary Silverman and Hannah Craft from W&C (all of whom are outside of Texas except for Craft, who is in Houston). Sidley also counseled Invenergy on its commitment from CDPQ in 2020.
Lazard and CIBC served as M&A advisors to Blackstone.
Invenergy Renewables has with more than 175 projects totaling nearly 25,000 megawatts developed across four continents. It is focused on partnerships with utilities, financial institutions and commercial and industrial customers.
Invenergy’s developed generation projects power the equivalent of 8.5 million homes and offset around 167 million tons of carbon dioxide, or about the annual emissions of the state of New York, the company said. It is building the largest wind and solar projects in the U.S. that combined will deliver nearly 3 gigawatts of clean energy by 2023.
Since 2019, Blackstone claims to have committed nearly $13 billion in investments that it believes are consistent with the broader energy transition.