SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Renewable Energy Trust Capital, Inc. (RET Capital) has named business development and finance executives Anna Kulic Van Dyke and Jonathan Cheng as its new managing directors of business development.
Van Dyke comes to RET Capital after serving eight years as Duke Energy’s director of project finance and business development where she helped grow its wind and solar energy business from zero to two gigawatts (GW) in less than 5 years. She was part of the business development team supporting greenfield renewable projects, including Duke’s entry into the wind business with the Tierra Energy acquisition—1,300 megawatts (MW) of wind generation in the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) and Western Electricity Coordinating Council (WECC)—and the Catamount Energy Corporation acquisition with 275 MW of operating assets and 1,500 MW in its wind development pipeline. She also led project financing of the 400 MW Los Vientos I and II wind projects in Texas.
Cheng comes to RET Capital after having served six years as director of business development at GCL Solar Energy where he led due diligence, acquisition and development efforts of eight distributed generation and utility-scale solar projects with a combined capacity of 180 MW and total capital cost of more than $700 million. In addition, he contributed to the successful greenfield development of 150 MW and transacted successful divestitures of ten projects with a combined capacity of 285 MW with capital costs of over $840 million. He also led due diligence on more than five GW of solar projects across North America, Europe and emerging markets. Previously, Cheng worked in structured finance at Bear Stearns.
“RET Capital is well-positioned for growth in 2015. The breadth of renewable industry knowledge and deep transactional experience both Anna and Jon bring to RET will further enhance the capabilities of our investment platform in working with our current and future asset partners,” said John A. Bohn, chief executive officer and chairman of RET Capital.
Over the past four weeks, RET Capital announced the purchase of three utility-scale solar power plants in Ontario delivering 40.9 MW DC to area households as well as the acquisition of the Camilla, Camp and Upson operating solar PV systems in Georgia, totaling 24.5 MW DC. In the past year RET Capital has acquired more than 100 MW of solar generating capacity.
RET Capital’s lead investor is BlueMountain Capital Management, an investment firm focused on the global credit markets and equity derivatives markets. BlueMountain Capital Management has a $19 billion portfolio and it or its affiliates have offices in New York, London and Tokyo.
About RET Capital
RET Capital is an independent finance platform established to lower the cost of capital for qualified developers and other industry stakeholders by providing reliable takeout financing. Focusing on the middle market and working toward standardization, RET Capital helps to facilitate accelerated growth in the North American renewable marketplace by working closely with selected Asset Partners to establish long-term relationships with developers, EPC firms and utilities to provide growth velocity, predictability and improved margins. RET Capital collaborates with its Asset Partners to tailor a suitable acquisition strategy and provide predictable ”take-out” financing for development liquidity. The RET Capital team endeavors to meet Asset Partners’ objectives through innovative ways to structure and design portfolio acquisition and joint ownership opportunities.