Ullico to inject USD 50m into Panasonic-Coronal solar partnership

Oct 22, 2013 - US insurance and investment firm Ullico Inc has made a sponsorship equity commitment of USD 50 million (EUR 36.4m) to the solar partnership of Panasonic Eco Solutions North America and Coronal Management LLC.

In a statement on Tuesday, Coronal said that the amount would boost the partnership’s capacity to offer take-out financing for new or operating solar assets. “The investment's long-term contractual revenue and expense streams, along with the underlying hard assets, fit very well with Ullico's investment approach for infrastructure” said Jeff Murphy, head of infrastructure investments and Ullico Investment Advisors Inc.

Panasonic Eco Solutions, part of Japan's Panasonic (TYO:6752), and Coronal have teamed up to jointly develop, build and operate solar parks in the US and Puerto Rico. Under a long-term partnership, the two companies aim to help cut the complexity of solar projects with a focus on the commercial, industrial, municipal and small utility markets. They expect to reach 100 MW of joint projects by end-2013.

Earlier this week, the Coronal-Panasonic duo said they had acquired 16.2 MW of solar projects in California that once completed will operate under the California Renewable Energy Small Tariff (CREST). The seller is Macquarie Capital, a unit of Australian Macquarie Group Ltd (ASX:MQG). In today’s statement, the partners said that these would be the first projects to be finalised under the now-expanded Ullico-backed portfolio.

(USD 1 = EUR 0.728)

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