Whitehelm Capital has acquired a stake in Kvitebjørn Varme AS (Kvitebjørn Varme), the owner and operator of the district heating network in the city of Tromsø, the largest urban area in Norway inside the Arctic Circle. The 49 percent equity interest was acquired from Kvitebjørn Energi AS (Kvitebjørn Energi), an energy company controlled by Norwegian investment group Daimyo, who will remain a shareholder in Kvitebjørn Varme.
The investment was made on behalf of a consortium of institutional investors and is consistent with Whitehelm’s long-standing commitment to core European mid-market infrastructure companies with long-term stable cashflows, strong market positions, clear growth potential and a focus on sustainability.
Kvitebjørn Varme produces more than 90GWh of thermal energy annually, primarily from sustainable and low carbon generation technologies, for the district heating of buildings and streets throughout Tromsø under an exclusive license. The heat is distributed as hot water through a network of 55 kilometers of underground pipes from the central heating plants to end customers. In recent years, Kvitebjørn Varme has invested in the expansion of the district heating network and in a new and modern 20-megawatt energy-from-waste plant with an annual capacity of 56,000 tons of waste.
Kvitebjørn Varme is Whitehelm Capital’s third investment in the Nordic region, following the acquisition of SAE, an energy-from-waste business in Sarpsborg, Norway, and Storrun, an onshore wind farm in Sweden. Whitehelm Capital has to date invested €2.4 billion ($2.8 billion) in Europe in seven different countries and continues to see excellent investment opportunities within mid-market infrastructure.
