Drake Star Partners Acts As Exclusive Advisor To Fortum In The Sale Of A Majority Share Of Its Nordic Public Ev Charge Point Operator To Infracapital

AMSTERDAM, HELSINKI, LONDON | April 27, 2020 – Fortum has today signed an agreement to sell the majority of its public charge point operator (CPO) Fortum Recharge AS for electric vehicles in the Nordics to Infracapital, the infrastructure equity investment arm of M&G Plc. It is the largest CPO in the Nordics, owning close to 1,300 public charging points, a majority of which being DC fast charging units and operating an additional 1,400 charging points in Norway, Finland, and Sweden. After the transaction, Fortum’s ownership in the CPO will be 37%. The partnership will create a shared ownership structure designed to accelerate Fortum Recharge’s growth plans in the public CPO market and reaffirm its market leading position.

Drake Star Partners acted as the exclusive financial advisor to Fortum on this transaction. This represents the 5th transaction in EV charging executed by the Drake Star Mobility and Energy Transition team based in Amsterdam.
 
Fortum will continue to own and operate its leading EV charging customer interface under its Charge & Drive and Plugsurfing brands, to offer home and destination charging services to its customers. Fortum will also continue to provide software as a service (SaaS) for operating EV charging infrastructure and customer interfaces to other CPOs.

The Nordic EV market is the most advanced and one of the fastest growing market globally, strongly supported by government policy and ambitious decarbonisation targets. Consequently, there is a significant and accelerating demand for public fast EV charging infrastructure in the region as mass adoption of EVs continues.
 
Jussi Uskola, Vice President, Corporate M&A at Fortum commented “We are excited to start the common journey with Infracapital for providing the outstanding coverage and user experience to Nordic EV drivers. It is easy to build on our common green values and ambitions. We highly appreciate the great work Drake Star Partners did in facilitating this partnering process.”

“Another deal with winners only,” said Frank Verbeek; Managing Partner at Drake Star Amsterdam. Frank Verbeek continues: “This transaction is another clear example of how the sector is evolving. Very few well positioned parties can claim market leadership positions in their respective fields. These leaders will therefore benefit most from the expected exponential growth in the overall EV and charging businesses in Norway, but also in the other Scandinavian countries. After years of seeing the market developed by entrepreneurs and first-mover companies, we now experience serious interest from large infrastructure funds, who recognize EV charging as a very attractive asset class and can invest vast amounts on the basis of increasingly secure revenues. For Drake Star Partners this transaction is the latest of an ongoing series of landmark transactions, adding to the expertise we can make available to other players aiming for a winning position.”

 
Drake Star Partners team: Frank Verbeek, Dominique Houde, Sherief Rahim and Michael Wilhelm
 
Inquiries

For more information please contact:

Dominique Houde or Sherief Rahim: dominique.houde@drakestar.com, sherief.rahim@drakestar.com
 
About Fortum

Fortum is a leading clean-energy company that provides its customers with electricity, heating and cooling as well as smart solutions to improve resource efficiency. We want to engage our customers and society to join the change for a cleaner world. We employ more than 8,000 professionals in the Nordic and Baltic countries, Russia, Poland and India. In 2019, our sales were EUR 5.4 billion and 59% of our electricity generation was CO2 free. Fortum’s share is listed on Nasdaq Helsinki.

For more information, please visit www.fortum.com