Goldman Sachs-owned Japanese renewables firm up for sale
Japanese renewables group JRE has been put up for sale by its owners, in a deal expected to draw interest from European firms eager to enter the country’s green power market.
Japan Renewable Energy Corporation (JRE) is co-owned by Goldman Sachs and Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund GIC, which took an undisclosed stake in 2017.
Interest is expected to pile in from large European energy players such as RWE and oil giant Shell, which plans to expand in solar wind.
Goldman Sachs declined to comment on the sale, which was first reported by Bloomberg.
JRE builds renewable energy assets and has 419 megawatts of solar, onshore wind and biomass capacity in operation.
It entered the Taiwanese market last week in its first overseas expansion and plans to branch out further.
Plans for a sale emerge days ahead of the 10-year anniversary of Japan’s Fukushima nuclear disaster than sent shockwaves through the global power industry.
A decade on, Japan has turned into a major renewable energy market which hopes to establish itself as the industry leader by 2040.