America’s biggest solar buyer has a low profile

Bloomberg

The biggest buyer of solar farms in America is a company you’ve probably never heard of. Meet Capital Dynamics, an asset manager that handles $15 billion. The firm’s been snapping up clean-power plants for years, but it wasn’t until this month — when the company agreed to spend almost $1 billion on a solar business — that it really landed on mainstream investors’ radar.
Now the firm is being called the harbinger of things to come, heralding the next generation of solar and wind farm owners: funds backed by institutional investors like pensions. Its agreement this month to buy 8Point3 Energy Partners LP is among the biggest in a recent string of clean-energy deals done by infrastructure funds. They’re appeasing their investors, who are hungry for the dependable, long-term returns of renewable-energy at a time when public-market interest has waned. Calling Capital Dynamics “the poster child” for clean-energy infrastructure funds, Bloomberg New Energy Finance analyst Nathan Serota says the firm’s success lies in the fact that it predicted clean energy assets would turn from public markets to private ownership before most of its rivals had caught on. The company aggressively pursued assets, and it’s not done. “This is not the end for us,” John Breckenridge, New York-based MD
at Capital Dynamics, said in an interview.