Veolia Environment subscribed to a capital increase of Eolfi of E18 million, thus acquiring a 50% interest in the company's capital and voting rights.
Eolfi has launched French venture capital fund FCPR EolInvest and initiating FIP Energies Nouvelles – France’s first local mutual fund dedicated to wind power. Over E100 million has been collected by those two funds from over 6,000 subscribers.
On the strength of this first success, in 2007, Eolfi has launched three new funds, a venture capital fund mainly focused on France, Greece, and Poland, and two new FIP Energies Nouvelles funds focused on the Atlantic and Mediterranean coasts. Eolfi’s three FIP funds thus cover 80% of France’s wind power stock.
These first five funds will enable Eolfi to build over 500 windmills by 2010, for a total production capacity of 1,000MW of green electricity. Eolfi is currently operating three wind farms with a capacity of 26MW in France and is building 12 others, with an additional capacity of 120MW.
Alain Delsupexhe, founder of Eolfi, said: Our capacity to raise capital quickly, finance and build wind farms in Europe have convinced Veolia to turn Eolfi into its exclusive wind power entity.