We first began investing in gas and power companies in the mid 1990s.  Since then, we’ve invested over $120m in 10 companies.  The investments have been made in Europe by our Venture Capital, Growth Capital and Buyouts businesses and have covered:

• Power Generation Related Businesses, such as Ocean Power Delivery, which designs and manufactures machines to generate electricity from wave power and Clarke Energy, the UK’s leading player in generators for landfill gas.
• Service businesses, such as NNC nuclear services business, where 3i invested in 1999 and sold to Amec in 2005 and Empower, which offers a comprehensive set of outsourcing services to electrical power utilities in Finland and the Baltic states.
• ‘Traditional’ energy businesses, such as GWE which focused on CHP (combined heat & power) and which we sold in 2005.
• ‘Renewable’ energy businesses, including the buyout of GES, a construction and O&M business focused on the wind sector.

GES is a great example of a business where we’re working in partnership to add value.  It was a $228m buyout from Gamesa, where we backed management’s vision of creating the world’s leading independent wind farm construction and maintenance business.  Value will be created by broadening the customer base and geographic footprint – 3i’s international network will help with both of these.

Through our network, we see many opportunities worldwide for partnerships and acquisitions.  We support businesses that can Capitalizing on these opportunities to create businesses of scale and value in specialist niches.  We are actively looking to partner businesses in a number of areas, including biofuels, waste to energy and combined heat and power.