Solar energy draws private equity interest; Providence agrees to sale of live entertainment business ATG

UPDATED: Morning all, Craig McGlashan here with the Europe Wire from the London newsroom.

There’s a solar eclipse coming to western Europe today – a rare moment without sunshine during what has been a hot and dry summer.

Those extra sun hours have been helping drive solar energy production, however, and this morning we delve into some recent private equity deals in European solar energy.

Next, Providence Equity Partners has agreed to sell ATG Entertainment, a UK-headquartered live entertainment company, to Mari. We take a look at Providence’s add-on plays during its hold period as well as how the private equity firm’s other recent exits have performed.

Complementary tech

Much of western Europe will witness a solar eclipse later today, providing a good excuse to round up some of the recent solar energy deals we’ve covered.

It’s a topic that ties into yesterday’s Europe Wire theme of air conditioning. One argument against widespread roll-out of AC in Europe has been down to the technology’s heavy energy use – but with cooling units tending to be used when the sun is out, solar energy can offset that issue, according to energy thinktank Ember.

“Solar power and air conditioning are complementary technologies with similar seasonal patterns, though air conditioning use tends to be weighted later in the day,” Frankie Mayo, senior energy and climate analyst, UK, at Ember wrote.

He added: “Air conditioning has an additional benefit to the UK grid too, facilitating increased and flexible demand during high solar generation hours.”

With that in mind, here’s some of our recent European solar energy coverage.

An insurance account managed by KKR last week signed an agreement with TotalEnergies to buy a 50 percent stake in a largely developed 1.2GW onshore solar and wind asset portfolio in Europe, in a €1.8 billion enterprise value transaction.

The transaction covers a portfolio of assets in Germany, Spain, France and Poland. The electricity produced by these assets is already sold to third parties.

TotalEnergies will retain a 50 percent stake in the assets and continue to operate them after completion of the transaction, which is expected in 2026 and subject to customary conditions.

The renewable energy deal follows the late 2025 acquisition by KKR of TotalEnergies’ North American solar business for about $1.25 billion.

CapVest Partners in July completed the acquisition of a majority stake in TSG Solutions, a European provider of technical services for critical energy infrastructure.

The deal values TSG at around €1.75 billion, PE Hub understands.

Members of the management team and HLD Group reinvested alongside CapVest and retain significant minority stakes in TSG. HLD acquired a majority stake in TSG in 2020.

Headquartered in Paris, TSG operates across 30 countries with over 7,000 employees and annual revenues of more than €1.4 billion. The company designs, builds and maintains critical energy infrastructure across power, charge, solar, battery energy storage systems, biofuels as well as gas and biogas.

“TSG occupies an important position in Europe’s energy infrastructure, serving customers across both traditional fuel and new energies, and we see a significant opportunity to accelerate its growth organically and through complementary acquisitions,” said Fred Raikes, partner at CapVest, in a statement.

Blackstone Infrastructure in April entered into an agreement to invest up to €2 billion in Eurowind Energy, a pan-European renewables developer and independent power producer.

Blackstone’s investment will provide capital to accelerate Eurowind’s renewables development activities as European power demand enters an inflection point, with electrification, AI, re-industrialization and the need for greater energy security expected to drive over 3 percent annual growth through 2040 after years of flat or negative demand, according to a press statement.

Headquartered in Hobro, Denmark, Eurowind’s activities span onshore wind, solar, battery storage and biogas across sixteen markets in Europe. The company was founded in 2006 by CEO Jens Rasmussen, Søren Rasmussen and Jakob Kortbæk and is jointly owned by Danish integrated energy and telecoms conglomerate Norlys.

Stage exit

From the sun to the stars.

Providence Equity Partners has agreed to sell ATG Entertainment, a UK-headquartered live entertainment company, to Mari.

The exit valued ATG at around £4.5 billion ($6.1 billion; €5.3 billion), making it one of Providence’s most successful exits, PE Hub understands.

ATG operates 70 venues across the UK, the US, Germany, and Spain, including seven on Broadway and 10 in London’s West End. It’s home to productions from ‘The Lion King’ and ‘Wicked’ to ‘Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.’

Mari owns and operates a global portfolio of events and experiences across sport, art, entertainment and lifestyle, including Frieze, Barrett-Jackson, the Miami Open, and the Hampton Court Palace and Blenheim Palace Festivals. It is based in Beverly Hills, California.

Mari and ATG will continue to operate as separate companies after the deal closes.

Providence bought ATG in 2013 for roughly £350 million. It made a series of add-ons, including entering the Spanish market with the acquisition of theatre producer Som Produce and New York-based theatre producer and owner Jujamcyn.

“Together, we’ve supported its international expansion, invested in iconic venues and strengthened the business through strategic acquisitions,” said Andrew Tisdale, vice chairman at Providence, in a statement.

The private equity firm has been finding plenty of buyers for its assets lately, despite the wider sluggish exit market. It had three binding bids at an executable price on a recent transaction – a “situation we haven’t really seen in the past few years,” Karim Tabet, senior managing director and head of Europe, told PE Hub in a recent interview.

In its last 10 exits, Providence increased the enterprise value of the sold asset by close to 7x on average, while it has generated an average 24 percent of NAV per year in distributions to LPs since the beginning of 2024, PE Hub understands.

In live events, Providence and Searchlight Capital Partners agreed to sell Hyve, a global B2B business, to Hellman & Friedman in June.

Providence teamed up with Searchlight again in May, when the latter agreed to invest in Providence-backed CloserStill Media, another B2B events company, taking co-control with Providence. The deal gave Providence the opportunity to reinvest in the company.

The GP’s other live entertainment investments include Superstruct Entertainment, a global operator of large-scale festivals and live music events.

That’s it from me today. Rafael Canton is in the US chair later today and I’ll write to you again from Europe tomorrow.

Cheers,

Craig

Editor’s note: This article was updated to include Providence’s exit and entry price for ATG Entertainment.