CARTAGENA, Colombia--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb 25, 2026--
Energea, a global renewable energy developer and operator, today announced the launch of its LATAM Energy Portfolio, the company's fourth active investment strategy, and will invest in distributed solar projects across South America, Central America, and the Caribbean. The portfolio launches with a $100 million secured credit facility with Helios Energía S.A.S. E.S.P., a regulated Colombian public utility delivering off-grid solar power to rural and indigenous communities.
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“The LATAM Energy Portfolio represents one of the most compelling risk-adjusted opportunities in the global energy transition today,” said Mike Silvestrini, Co-Founder and Managing Partner at Energea. “Latin America combines growing electricity demand with limited financing options and elevated capital costs, creating attractive conditions for yield-oriented investors. This portfolio fills a critical financing gap while generating revenue through contracted energy sales and amortizing loan repayments, emphasizing durability, collateral protection, and covenant discipline.”
The portfolio's anchor investment with Helios Energía targets Colombia's Zonas No Interconectadas, where traditional grid extension is not economically viable. The investment is helping to bring first-time reliable electricity access for rural and indigenous communities beyond the national grid. As of May 2025, Helios manages more than 20,000 active, government-subsidized subscribers across nine departments, providing first-time access to reliable electricity in regions historically beyond the reach of the national grid.
“Latin America is a natural region for expansion for Energea given our successful track record investing in emerging markets,” added Silvestrini. “We're particularly excited about the structured nature of this investment, which provides secured exposure to government-backed cash flows within Colombia's regulated SISFV framework. The transaction structure secured exposure to regulated, government-backed infrastructure cash flows, incorporating fixed interest rates with monthly amortization, equity pledges, registered liens over receivables, and a fiduciary trust structure that centralizes collections and enforces senior repayment priority.”
The Helios facility features a minimum 1.4x cash-based debt service coverage ratio covenant tested on actual inflows, providing institutional-grade protection while supporting the utility's subscriber growth and working capital stabilization. Under Colombia's regulated framework, qualifying systems receive fixed reimbursements for both operating and capital expenditures over defined recovery periods.
The LATAM Energy Portfolio is Energea’s fourth active investment strategy, joining Energea's existing strategies in Brazil, Africa, and the United States, reflecting the company's continued focus on markets where electricity prices are elevated, local borrowing costs are high, and access to long-term infrastructure capital remains constrained.
“While significant institutional capital has focused on Asia and Europe, we believe the Americas remain comparatively underallocated relative to opportunity,” said Silvestrini. “As energy demand expands and electricity prices adjust accordingly, project economics strengthen. Our objective is to participate in that growth through structured investments designed to balance yield, impact, and capital protection.”
The portfolio is designed as a multi-country strategy that will diversify across multiple jurisdictions, counterparties, and transaction types while maintaining disciplined focus on distributed generation. The mandate allows Energea to acquire direct ownership interests in distributed energy projects, provide secured credit facilities to qualified operators, and structure transactions supported by long-term contracts and reliable counterparties.
About Energea
Energea is a U.S.-based energy infrastructure investment platform providing access to contracted, cash-flowing assets across global markets. Since launching in 2020, Energea has raised over $450 million and generated a 12% realized IRR for investors. Energea enables individual investors, financial advisors, and institutional partners to participate in the global energy transition through diversified portfolios designed to deliver durable, real asset-backed returns while expanding access to reliable low-cost electricity. Learn more at energea.com.
Energea’s LATAM Energy Portfolio’s anchor investment with Helios Energía targets Colombia's Zonas No Interconectadas, where traditional grid extension is not economically viable
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — Thousands of people rallied Saturday in the cradle of the modern Civil Rights Movement to mobilize a new voting rights era as conservative states dismantle congressional districts that helped secure Black political representation.
U.S. Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey called Montgomery “sacred soil” in the fight for civil rights.
“If we in our generation do not now do our duty, we will lose the gains and the rights and the liberties that our ancestors afforded us,” Booker said.
The crowd was led in chants of “we won’t go back” and “we fight.”
“We are not going down without a fight. We are not going down to Jim Crow maps,” Shalela Dowdy, a plaintiff in the Alabama redistricting case said.
A crowd of thousands gathered in front of the city’s historic Alabama Capitol, the place where the Confederacy was formed in 1861 and where the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke in 1965 at the end of the Selma-to-Montgomery Voting Rights March. The stage, set in front of the Capitol, was flanked from behind by statues of Confederate President Jefferson Davis and civil rights icon Rosa Parks — dueling tributes erected nearly 90 years apart.
Speakers said the spot was once the temple of the confederacy and became holy ground of the civil rights movement.
Some in the crowd said the effort to redraw lines has echoes of the past.
“We lived through the “60s. It takes you back. When you think that Alabama’s moving forward, it takes two steps back,” said Camellia A Hooks, 70, of Montgomery, Alabama.
The rally began in Selma, where a violent clash between law enforcement and voting rights activists in 1965 galvanized support for passage of the Voting Rights Act. It then moved to the state Capitol, where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his “How Long, Not Long” speech that same year.
A recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling involving Louisiana hollowed out voting rights law that was already weakened by a separate decision in 2013 and then narrowed further over the years. That helped clear the way for stricter voter ID laws, registration restrictions, and limits on early voting and polling place changes, including in states that once needed federal preclearance before they could change voting laws because of their historical discrimination against Black voters.
Veterans of the Civil Rights Movement are alarmed by the speed of the rollbacks, noting that protections won through generations of sacrifice have been weakened in little more than a decade.
Kirk Carrington, 75, was a teen in 1965 when law enforcement officers attacked marchers in Selma on what became known as “Bloody Sunday.” A white man on a horse wielding a stick chased Carrington through the streets.
“It’s really just appalling to me and all the young people that marched during the ’60s, fought hard to get voting rights, equal rights and civil rights,” Carrington said. “It’s sad that it’s continuing after 60-plus-odd years that we are still fighting for the same thing we fought for back then.”
Montgomery is home to one of the congressional districts that is being altered in the wake of the Supreme Court ruling.
A federal court in 2023 redrew Alabama's 2nd Congressional District after ruling that the state intentionally diluted the voting power of Black residents, who make up about 27% of its population. The court said there should be a district where Black people are a majority or near-majority and have an opportunity to elect their candidate of choice.
But the Supreme Court cleared the way for a different map that could let the GOP reclaim the seat. While the matter remains under litigation, the state plans special primaries Aug. 11 under the new map.
Democratic Rep. Shomari Figures, who won election in the district in 2024, said the dispute is not about him but rather people's opportunity to have representation.
“When Republicans are literally turning back the clock on what representation, what the faces of representation, look like, what the opportunities, legitimate opportunities for representation look like across this country, then I think it starts to resonate with people in a little bit of a different way,” Figures said.
Alabama House Speaker Nathaniel Ledbetter, a Republican, said the Louisiana ruling provided an opportunity to revisit a map that was forced on the state by the federal court.
“People tend to forget what happened. When this thing went to court, the Republican Party had that seat, congressional seat two,” Ledbetter said last week. “There’s been a push through the courts to try to overtake some of these red state seats, and that’s certainly what happened in that one.”
Evan Milligan, the lead plaintiff in the Alabama redistricting case, said there is grief over the implosion of the Voting Rights Act but it is crucial that people recommit to the fight.
“We have to accept that this is the new reality, whether we like it or not,” Milligan said. “We don’t have to accept that this will be the reality for the next 10 years or two years or forever.”
A man sings a spirtual song during a voting rally, Saturday, May 16, 2026, in Montgomery, Ala. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)
The State capitol is seen during a voting rally, Saturday, May 16, 2026, in Montgomery, Ala. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)
A protestor holds a sign of the late Georgia Congressman John Lewis during a voting rally, Saturday, May 16, 2026, in Montgomery, Ala. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)
A man sings a spirtual song during a voting rally, Saturday, May 16, 2026, in Montgomery, Ala. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)
A protestor holds a sign of the late Georgia Congressman John Lewis during a voting rally, Saturday, May 16, 2026, in Montgomery, Ala. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)
U.S. Sen Corey Booker, D-NY., has his photo taken during a voting rally, Saturday, May 16, 2026, in Montgomery, Ala. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)
People gather during a voting rally, Saturday, May 16, 2026, in Montgomery, Ala. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)
U.S. Sen Corey Booker, D-NY., has his photo taken during a voting rally, Saturday, May 16, 2026, in Montgomery, Ala. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)
Aaron McGuire sings a spirtual song during a voting rally, Saturday, May 16, 2026, in Montgomery, Ala. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)
