Vanguard Renewables CEO on $700M Sale to BlackRock, Digester Expansion and Landfill Competition
Vanguard Renewables was already the largest anaerobic digester operator in the U.S. market. News of its sale to a fund managed by BlackRock Real Assets is seen as a way to drastically expand that position to upward of 150 sites.
The deal, valued at $700 million according to sources, will lead to BlackRock investing an estimated $2 billion in growing Vanguard’s portfolio of sites. Since it was founded in 2014, the Massachusetts-based company has built six Northeast digesters that codigest food and farm waste through its Vanguard Organics division. This new capital is expected to fund the expansion of 60 to 70 new digesters in that division across the country. Vanguard is also partnered with Dominion Energy to develop, construct and operate manure-based digesters.