Macquarie taps advisor for Cero sale
Macquarie Group has appointed Akereos Capital to advise on a sale of its European solar IPP business Cero Generation, according to sources.
The London-based advisory firm is understood to have replaced Goldman Sachs, which previously ran a sale of Cero in 2024.
Cero may be broken up and its asset base split up into regional geographic packages, says one source.
Another investor notes that a revised sale is likely to kick off in the second quarter.
Macquarie Asset Management launched London-based Cero in 2021 to consolidate the European solar assets of Macquarie’s Green Investment Group.
Last November, Macquarie Group announced in its half year results that control of Cero would transfer from MAM to Macquarie Group.
MAM previously launched a sale of Cero in in early 2024, in a deal code-named Project Sirius, and took NBOs in July of that year, PeakLoadpreviously reported.
Back in 2024, Cero’s portfolio included 600 MW of operational or under construction projects and a 25 GW development pipeline of solar and energy storage projects, spread across the U.K. (7.4 GW), Poland (4.7 GW), Greece (5.1 GW), France (3.5 GW), Spain (2.9 GW), Netherlands (100 MW), Germany (300 MW) and Italy (1.6 GW), according to a deal teaser for Project Sirius.
Some 16% of the projects were co-located BESS and solar projects, with the remainder split evenly between solar and BESS.
Half of the project portfolio were at a mid- to late-stage of development, according to the teaser. Some 5 GW of projects should reach ready-to-build status within the next two years, it noted
It had some 243 employees, including 116 developers working on the ground in Cero’s eight different markets.
More recently CPP Investments held talks to merge Cero with its European onshore renewable platform Renewable Power Capital, PeakLoad previously reported.
Officials at Macquarie and Akereos declined comment.