Offshore wind “has been an area of great interest to us,” said Carol Gould, the head of power and renewables for Europe at MUFG, a Japanese bank
that is backing a separate giant wind farm off Britain, among other projects.
PensionDanmark, a Danish pension provider, has invested more than €1.6 billion in equity stakes in offshore wind projects
and expects returns of 6 percent to 9 percent, said Torben Moger Pedersen, the chief executive.
“If you had polled infrastructure investors five years ago, only a few would have been looking at offshore
wind,” said Suzanne Buchta, the Bank of America Merrill Lynch global co-head of green bonds.
Planned mega-projects that will dwarf the Burbo Bank Extension will test whether investors still see renewables as an attractive investment
and whether Europe will retain a leadership role when it comes to green energy in the Trump era.
Dong sold 25 percent stakes in the Burbo Bank Extension to PKA, a Danish pension fund,
and Kirkbi, the investment vehicle of the Kristiansen family, which owns Lego.
Offshore is “on the cusp of a new world,” said Samuel Leupold, Dong’s executive vice president for wind.
It is precisely the size, both of the projects and the profits they can bring,
that has grabbed the attention of financial institutions, money managers and private equity funds, like the investment bank Goldman Sachs, as well as wealthy individuals like the owner of the Danish toymaker Lego.
Goldman Sachs holds a large stake in the company itself,
but several other companies, individuals and funds have taken stakes in its many projects and more are in the works — a giant new facility off the English coast known as Hornsea 1 will dwarf the Burbo Bank Extension.