Terra Firma’s Infinis Energy fails to take over renewables company Novera

It is believed that Infinis, which is owned by Guy Hands’ UK private equity firm Terra Firma, needs to win a further three per cent of shareholders’ approval for the takeover to proceed.

Infinis is one of the UK’s largest producers of renewable energy and has 100 generating sites across the UK with 313MW of installed capacity.

Infinis recently acquired 5.6 million shares in Novera from a single shareholder, representing approximately 3.9 per cent of the existing share capital of Novera, at 75 pence per share.

Prior to the acquisition, Infinis Energy owned more than 61.7 million Novera shares, representing approximately 42.6 per cent of Novera’s existing issued share capital. Infinis said it now either owns or has received valid acceptances in respect of a total of nearly 67.6 million Novera shares, representing around 46.7 per cent of the company’s share capital.

Novera has traded at a 52 week low of 29 pence per share and at an average share price of 40.8 pence per share in the period between December 2008 and October 2009.

In August, Terra Firma acquired Everpower Wind Holdings, a developing US wind energy business, in a $350m deal.

The private equity house has been hit hard by its £4bn (€4.4bn) leveraged buy-out of music group EMI, which it bought in 2007 at the height of the buy-out boom. Earlier this month, the firm reportedly offered to inject around £1bn (€1.1bn) into EMI in return for Citigroup giving up a similar proportion of its £2.6bn (€2.9bn) loans on the deal.

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