HgCapital boosts renewable team

HgCapital, the European sector-focused private equity investor, has strengthened its renewable energy team along with a number of internal promotions.

Jean Perarnaud and Jens Thomassen have joined as associate directors, bringing the total number of investment professionals in HgCapital’s renewable energy team to five. In addition, Emma Tinker, one of the founding members of the team, has been promoted to director and Rob de Laszlo has been promoted from associate to associate director.

Perarnaud joins HgCapital from ING Bank in Amsterdam, where he was vice-president in the project finance team and worked on several transactions across Europe both in the renewable and conventional energy sectors. He previously worked at Calyon and holds an MSc Eng in Chemical Engineering from Ensic Nancy (France) and an MBA from INSEAD.

Thomassen joins from GE Energy Financial Services, bringing with him a decade of business development and investment experience in the energy industry. Prior to GE, he worked at BHP Billiton and Enron and during the last three years has worked on several equity and debt investments throughout Europe in the renewable energy, thermal energy and oil and gas sectors. He holds a Master of Science in Business Administration from the Norwegian School of Economics and University of St Gallen.

HgCapital established a dedicated energy investment team and launched the €300m Hg Renewable Power Partners fund, Europe’s largest dedicated fund for renewable power projects, in 2004. The fund invests in a wide range of renewable power technologies across Western Europe, including wind power, biomass, landfill gas, waste, hydro, geothermal and solar. Investments range from development stage support to operational projects.

HgCapital’s most recent investment in RidgeWind brought its renewable energy portfolio to more than 120MW in construction or operation and 700MW in development. When fully invested, the HgCapital fund will support over €1.3bn in renewable power projects – and generate enough power to light more than 500,000 homes.