Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) agreed on Monday to pay $144m for a 6.3% stake in ReNew Power, an India-based renewable power producer backed by corporate joint venture Jera.
CPPIB, which manages funds on behalf of the government’s Canada Pension Plan scheme, acquired the shares from the multilateral Asian Development Bank (ADB), which had invested $50m in ReNew as part of a $140m round in 2014 before supplying $390m in debt financing in January 2017.
ReNew develops renewable energy projects and had built a 2 GW portfolio of wind farms, utility-scale solar plants and rooftop solar systems as of 2017. It is working on an initial public offering, according to a report in April 2017.
The company has raised $855m in equity funding, $200m of which came in January 2017 from Jera, the joint investment venture formed by Japan-based energy utilities Tokyo Electric Power and Chubu Electric Power, at a valuation of $2bn.
Other ReNew investors include investment bank Goldman Sachs, which invested $200m at the time of its 2011 launch, Global Environment Fund and Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, the three having provided $265m in 2015. The former two also joined ADB for the 2014 round.
The CPPIB investment was made the day before Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi told the World Economic Forum that the country aims to increase the amount of wind and solar energy it generates from 60 GW today to 175 GW by 2022.
Sumant Sinha, ReNew’s chairman and CEO, said: “Asian Development Bank made an equity investment in ReNew Power during our early days in July 2014 and we are thankful to them for their sustained partnership. We will continue to focus on developing and investing in high-quality projects.”