Mercom Capital Group reports funding for merger and acquisition (M&A) activity for the wind sector for 2013 increased in both the number of deals and dollar volumes.
Global venture capital (VC) funding in the wind sector increased to $455 million in 2013 compared to $315 million in 2012. Total funding into the wind sector reached $28.1 billion in 2013, including VC funding, public market financings, debt financings and announced project funding deals.
Seven downstream companies raised a combined $374.3 million in 2013. Six small wind turbine manufacturers raised $68.8 million. One wind component company raised $6.2 million and three monitoring software companies raised $5.5 million.
The top VC funded company in 2013 was ReNew Power, an Indian wind project developer, which raised $135 million, followed by Mainstream Renewable Power, an independent renewable energy project developer, which raised $133 million.
Public market financings accounted for $5.8 billion in 17 deals in 2013 including six IPOs totaling $2.3 billion.
Large-scale project funding in 2013 amounted to $18.1 billion in 114 deals, compared to $14 billion in 72 deals in 2012. There were a total of 150 investors that participated in project funding in 2013. The most active project funding investors were KfW IPEX-Bank with nine deals, followed by the European Investment Bank with seven deals, and Nord/LB with six deals.
The top M&A transaction in 2013 was the $1.25 billion acquisition of Kaydon Corporation, an industrial manufacturer and supplier of wind turbine bearings, by SKF Group, a global supplier of bearings, seals, mechatronics, lubrication systems, and other services. Disclosed project acquisitions increased in 2013 with 116 transactions compared to 72 transactions in 2012, representing over 16 GW that changed hands. There were 37 project acquisitions in Q4 2013 compared to 26 in Q3 2013.
