Danish wind energy powerhouse Orsted has entered into an agreement to acquire U.S. firm Lincoln Clean Energy (LCE).
Founded in 2009, LCE develops, owns and operates onshore wind farms. The deal places a value of $580 million on the U.S. firm, which has offices in both Chicago and Austin.
In a statement Thursday, Orsted said that LCE had an "attractive portfolio" which includes 513 megawatts of recently commissioned wind and solar assets. A dominant force in the offshore wind sector, Orsted has installed 5.1 gigawatts (GW) of offshore wind capacity in Europe, with 3.8 GW currently under construction.
"We're already the global leader in offshore wind and we see this as a natural, adjacent extension of our current business platform to move into onshore wind," Orsted's CEO, Henrik Poulsen, told CNBC's "Squawk Box Europe" Thursday.
Poulsen described the U.S. as being the largest onshore wind market in the world. "We see this as a significant both short term and long-term growth opportunity for us," he added.
Orsted said that LCE's current management team would continue to run the company, and that it would exist as a separate unit outside of the Danish firm's wind power business. The transaction remains subject to approval from U.S. competition authorities and is expected to close before the end of 2018.
In a statement on Orsted's website LCE's CEO, Declan Flanagan, said that the transaction would "enhance our project execution and growth trajectory."
Thursday also saw Orsted post second-quarter core profit (EBITDA) roughly in line with analysts' expectations, Reuters reported. The firm said it expected its full-year EBITDA towards the upper end of its previously guided range of between 12.5 and 13.5 billion Danish crowns ($1.94 billion to $2.10 billion), according to Reuters.
