Birmingham law firm Martineau, has completed one of the largest private equity investment programmes in the UK solar sector, acting for established City-based fund manager Octopus Investments.

Octopus is an established client of Martineau's highly successful Corporate Finance team which operates out of its Birmingham headquarters. The firm picked up the significant mandate in early 2011 due to the combined strength of Martineau's industry-renown, top-tier Energy team and the investment and structuring credentials of the firm's market-leading Corporate Finance team.

Martineau has already advised Octopus on ten individual solar photovoltaic (PV) projects - a mix of roof and land based schemes - located across the UK, with further projects currently underway. Individual investments ranged in size from £2m to £15m. Each of the projects will benefit from subsidies under the government's feed-in tariff scheme, and will be fully built and connected to the grid ahead of the forthcoming changes which come into effect in August 2011.

With a combined capacity of around 50 MW, the projects will go some way to helping meet the UK's renewable energy targets for 2020.

The 30 strong Martineau team was led by head of Corporate Finance, Kavita Patel, with lawyers drawn from across the firm, notably the Energy, Property and Banking teams.

Andrew Whitehead, Martineau head of Energy, commented: "As a market-leading Energy practice, with a wealth of experience in the wind energy sector, it's gratifying to have played a key role in this significant solar deal. I think this is a great demonstration of the role private equity has to play in the success of the UK's renewable energy programme. 

"This is just one of many similar schemes on our books, funded in a variety of ways. I am confident we will see more of these coming on stream and contributing to the UK's renewable energy targets."

Head of the Solar team at Octopus Investments, Matt Setchell, commented on the deal: "This is an important project for Octopus, and one we felt Martineau would be instrumental in pulling together in light of their expertise in both the investment and energy markets. The firm's strength in depth was demonstrated by the ability to utilise the knowledge and experience of lawyers working in other sectors - most notably property - which enabled them to deliver all the legal support required in a project of this nature."

Octopus partnered with leading solar developer Lightsource for all of the schemes and worked with a variety of green energy suppliers and specialist contractors.

"This was a groundbreaking deal in more ways than one," added Kavita Patel. "With the Government announcing its fast track review of solar feed in tariffs, we were acting under extremely tight deadlines to get these deals to financial close. And the project management challenges inherent in these types of multi-project deals are not to be underestimated. I'm confident we've helped deliver a fantastic deal for Octopus and helped push the UK towards its renewables targets."