MPC Caribbean Clean En­er­gy has launched its Ini­tial Pub­lic Of­fer­ing (IPO) for shares to be cross-list­ed on the Ja­maica and the T&T Stock Ex­changes. The com­pa­ny has been formed to fa­cil­i­tate and par­tic­i­pate in the re­new­able en­er­gy project in­vest­ments of MPC Caribbean Clean En­er­gy Fund LL­Cin Ja­maica, T&T, and the wider Caribbean re­gion.

MPC will on­ly in­vest in­to the fund, one of on­ly a few in­fra­struc­ture in­vest­ment funds spe­cial­iz­ing in clean en­er­gy in the Caribbean with the po­ten­tial to pro­vide an at­trac­tive in­vest­ment op­por­tu­ni­ty for in­sti­tu­tion­al and pri­vate in­vestors. This is due to the sig­nif­i­cant growth po­ten­tial of clean en­er­gy in the re­gion.

Mar­tin Vogt, Man­ag­ing Di­rec­tor at MPC Re­new­able En­er­gies, the in­vest­ment ad­vi­sor to the Fund man­ag­er, said: “The ma­jor­i­ty of the Caribbean coun­tries re­ly on fos­sil fu­el im­ports which lead to high elec­tric­i­ty prices. Re­new­able en­er­gy, on the oth­er hand, has on­ly played a mi­nor role in the re­gion, even though the con­di­tions for lever­ag­ing so­lar and wind pow­er are ide­al.

“Con­sid­er­ing the in­creas­ing de­mand for en­er­gy re­new­ables are of ma­jor im­por­tance when it comes to elec­tric­i­ty gen­er­a­tion, we want to sup­port this trend by in­vest­ing in a di­ver­si­fied port­fo­lio of re­new­able en­er­gy in­fra­struc­ture through­out the Caribbean re­gion.

“Our vi­sion is to make the Fund the main in­vest­ment com­pa­ny for re­new­able en­er­gy in the Caribbean. We have iden­ti­fied a va­ri­ety of projects which re­quire ap­prox­i­mate­ly US$500 mil­lion of pri­vate in­vest­ments and that would not on­ly sig­nif­i­cant­ly re­duce the car­bon foot­print of pre-ex­ist­ing pow­er gen­er­a­tion as­sets in the re­gion but would al­so meet our in­vestors’ ex­pect­ed re­turns. Our pipeline in­cludes clean en­er­gy in­vest­ments in Ja­maica, the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic, Cos­ta Ri­ca, Colom­bia, among oth­ers.”

Ini­tial in­vest­ments of the fund in­clude the largest so­lar park in Ja­maica, which will gen­er­ate enough elec­tric­i­ty to sup­ply more than 50,000 peo­ple with clean en­er­gy at the low­est pro­duc­tion costs in Ja­maica and the Caribbean. JPS Co. will pur­chase all elec­tric­i­ty for the next 20 years for a fixed price. The so­lar park re­quired a to­tal in­vest­ment of US$64 mil­lion and is fi­nanced by in­vestors and fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tions from France and the Nether­lands.

Tilawind, an op­er­a­tional 21 MW wind farm in Cos­ta Ri­ca, rep­re­sents the sec­ond tar­get­ed in­vest­ment of MPC Caribbean Clean En­er­gy Fund LLC and a co-in­vestor from T&T for a to­tal in­vest­ment of more than US$50 mil­lion. Since 2014, re­new­able en­er­gy in Cos­ta Ri­ca sup­plied more than 98 per cent of the en­er­gy out­put for the en­tire na­tion. The Tilawind wind farm is con­tribut­ing to this achieve­ment since 2015 while pro­vid­ing an at­trac­tive cash yield. The wind farm was fi­nanced with a loan from Cos­ta Ri­ca’s largest bank Ban­co Na­cional. The fund in­tends to dou­ble the elec­tric­i­ty pro­duc­tion of Tilawind in the com­ing years and to sup­ply more than 100,000 peo­ple with clean en­er­gy in Cos­ta Ri­ca.

MPC Re­new­able En­er­gies GmbH, a whol­ly-owned sub­sidiary of the pub­licly list­ed Ger­man as­set and in­vest­ment man­ag­er MPC Cap­i­tal AG, is the in­vest­ment ad­vi­sor to the fund man­ag­er of MPC Caribbean Clean En­er­gy Fund LLC. The in­vest­ment ad­vi­sor’s team con­sists of Mar­tin Vogt, Man­ag­ing Di­rec­tor, Head of Orig­i­na­tion, Re­new­able En­er­gy; David De­laire, Man­ag­ing Di­rec­tor, Head of As­set Man­age­ment, Pow­er & Re­new­able En­er­gy; and Fer­nan­do Zúñi­ga, Di­rec­tor, Cen­tral Amer­i­ca and Caribbean of MPC Re­new­ables Pana­ma SA.

The sub­scrip­tion phase for the IPO opened on De­cem­ber 3. Clos­ing is ex­pect­ed for De­cem­ber 14. The of­fer­ing prospec­tus and sub­scrip­tion forms are avail­able on the web­site of the com­pa­ny at www.mpc-cleanen­er­gy.com.

The of­fer­ing will be mar­ket­ed by JN Fund Man­agers Ltd. in Ja­maica and First Cit­i­zens Bro­ker­age and Ad­vi­so­ry Ser­vices Lim­it­ed in T&T as lead bro­kers. The min­i­mum sub­scrip­tion to the of­fer­ing is US$500 (or the equiv­a­lent of JMD in Ja­maica).