Drake Star Partners Advises Alliander Nv On The Sale Of Ev Charging Solutions Provider Allego To Meridiam Transition Fund

AMSTERDAM | May 31, 2018 – Alliander announced today the sale of Allego to Meridiam, a French investment firm with offices in 8 countries specializing in the development, financing and management of long-term and sustainable infrastructure projects. Allego develops throughout Europe charging solutions and charging infrastructure for electric transport for municipalities, provinces, companies and transport companies. Drake Star Partners acted as exclusive financial adviser to Alliander in this transaction.

Headquartered in Arnhem, Netherlands, Allego has made a significant contribution to the development of charging infrastructure in Europe, making significant market share gains over the past five years. With Allego, Alliander wanted to learn what the impact of electric charging would be on the electricity grid and wanted to develop solutions to prevent unnecessary social investments in the electricity networks. The acquired knowledge and experience is also included in the development of the new Climate Agreement, where one of the issues is how sustainable mobility in the Netherlands can best be realized.

Commenting on the sale of its subsidiary Allego to Meridiam, Alliander’s CEO Ingrid Thijssen said: “Alliander launched Allego in 2013 with the aim of creating a big enough EV-charging network to allow people to drive their electric cars with freedom and confidence, and to develop solutions to ensure that e-charging doesn’t overload the electricity grid,” said Ingrid Thijssen, CEO of Allego’s parent company Alliander. “I’m delighted that we’ve found a new owner for Allego who shares this vision. As a long-term international investor in infrastructure, Meridiam ties in very well with Allego’s activities and is perfectly positioned to support it through the next phase of rapid international growth. The sale recoups Alliander’s initial outlay in Allego.”

In October 2017, Drake Star Partners had already advised NewMotion – a provider of charging solutions for electric vehicles –  in its sale to Shell. By regularly discussing future relevant opportunities with private equity firms, infrastructure funds, strategic buyers including OEMs, Utilities, Oil & Gas companies, The European Investment Bank and other hybrid solution providers, Drake Star Partners keeps building up its expertise and coverage in the mobility space.

“We are extremely happy for all parties involved and to have found a solution that allows Allego to fulfil its future ambitions and to secure the independence it needs to become the best and truly open EV infrastructure across Europe”, commented Frank Verbeek, Managing Partner at Drake Star. He continued: “Due to the nature of the project, it was a quite complex carve out, equity sale and financing transaction which we managed to execute in just over five months. Given our recent and continuous advisory work in this space, we foresee a large number of new EV-related transactions coming about the near future. To respond to this increase in demand, we have extended our team to ensure we can manage the requests for advice in the EV sector. We believe that our track-record and continuing work in the EV space uniquely positions Drake Star as a leader in projects relating to future mobility and green infrastructure.”

Drake Star Partners team: Frank Verbeek, Sherief Rahim, Bas Hendriks
Legal advisors: Linklaters
Fiscal advisors: KPMG Meijburg

About Alliander

Alliander is an energy network company. Every day, the company transports energy to more than three million consumers and companies in the Netherlands. Alliander ensures a reliable, affordable and accessible energy supply for today’s and tomorrow’s needs. Alliander consists of a group of companies with a total of more than 7,000 employees. Together we stand for high-quality knowledge of energy networks, energy technology and technical innovations. Our shareholders are Dutch provinces and municipalities. Together with them and our partners, we discuss future plans and we offer solutions for complex issues in the field of energy infrastructure.

For more information, please visit www.alliander.com/en

About Allego

Allego is a leading provider of charging solutions which has significant expertise in e-mobility, including the creation of a network of multi standard fast chargers throughout The Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, United Kingdom and Luxembourg. Allego deploys more than 6000 charging sockets in urban areas and along major transportation routes. The main focus of the company is to provide an international reliable network of both AC- and DC charging and support companies and EV drivers via an EV Cloud based service platform

For more information, please visit www.allego.eu

About Meridiam

Meridiam is an independent investment company specializing in the development, financing and management of long-term and sustainable public infrastructure projects. With offices in, New York, Paris, Toronto, Luxembourg, Istanbul, Vienna, Addis Ababa and Dakar, Meridiam currently manages 6.2 billion euros in assets and more than 60 projects under development, construction or use to date.

For more information, please visit www.meridiam.com/en

Inquiries

For further inquiries, please contact:

Frank Verbeek
Managing Partner Netherlands | Drake Star Partners
Frank.verbeek@drakestar.com | +31 6 538 39 013

Sherief Rahim
Senior Associate, Drake Star Partners Netherlands
Sherief.rahim@drakestar.com | +31 6 439 51 155

Note to reader:

Drake Star Partners is currently working in full partnership with Roland Berger Strategy Consultants on a market report covering both the EV sector and all related topics on what the firms jointly define as “MobilityAutonomousDigitizationElectricification.” Stay tuned for more information on this upcoming report.