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M&A; Associate

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Milano, MI, Italia

Job Type

Tempo pieno

Workspace The role is based in Milan with a hybrid working model, including regular presence in the office and close collaboration with the Sky Distributed Energy team and our local platform businesses in Italy and Portugal.

The position will require regular travel, particularly within Italy and Portugal, as well as occasional travel to other European markets.

Benvenuto nel futuro dell'energia!

Sky Distributed Energy is a pan-European distributed energy business backed by Sky, a renewable energy fund managed by Octopus Energy Generation.

We develop, finance, own and operate decentralised energy assets across Europe through our local operating platforms, including Coralsun in Italy and SparkWave Energy in Portugal and Spain.

Our activities span behind-the-meter solar, small-scale distributed generation, battery storage and other energy-transition solutions for commercial and industrial customers.

As the business grows, acquisitions of third-party projects and portfolios are becoming an increasingly important complement to our internally developed pipeline. Opportunities range from individual or portfolios of Ready-to-Build (RtB) projects to operating renewable-energy assets, including behind-the-meter projects, Portuguese UPP portfolios and Italian FER X portfolios.

We are looking for an M&A; Associate – Southern Europe to join our investment team and support the origination, assessment and execution of transactions across Southern Europe, with an initial focus on Italy and Portugal.

You will work closely with the Head of Investments, Coralsun and SparkWave management teams, and the wider Sky Distributed Energy and Octopus Energy Generation teams.

Cosa Farai

You will play a key role in executing acquisitions of renewable-energy projects and portfolios, from initial screening through due diligence, investment approval, negotiation and closing.

In Particular, You Will

- Support and progressively manage acquisition processes from initial assessment through signing and completion, covering RtB, construction-stage and operational distributed-energy assets.
- Own transaction timetables, information requests, data rooms, due diligence trackers and advisor workstreams.
- Act as a key point of coordination between Sky Distributed Energy, Coralsun, SparkWave, sellers and external advisors.
- Identify material transaction issues early and drive them towards resolution.

Financial modelling & valuation
- Own and maintain financial models for project and portfolio acquisitions.
- Translate technical, commercial, regulatory and contractual assumptions into robust investment cases.
- Analyse cash flows, acquisition consideration, development premiums, operating performance, tax assumptions and expected investment returns.
- Perform valuation analysis for operating assets and RtB portfolios.
- Run sensitivities and downside scenarios to identify key value drivers and risks.
- Review and challenge vendor models and underlying assumptions.
- Help develop standard acquisition models and valuation tools across Sky Distributed Energy.

Due diligence & investment risk
- Coordinate financial, commercial, legal, tax, technical,



ESG and development due diligence with internal teams and external advisors.
- Define proportionate due diligence scopes based on transaction size, complexity, development stage and risk.
- Critically assess advisor findings and identify the issues that materially affect the investment case.
- Translate due diligence findings into valuation adjustments, contractual protections, conditions precedent or other mitigants.
- Develop reusable due diligence checklists and transaction playbooks, including for recurring acquisition types such as UPP and FER X portfolios.

Investment approvals
- Prepare high-quality investment papers, transaction summaries and approval materials.
- Present valuation, sensitivities, transaction structure, key risks and due diligence conclusions clearly and concisely.
- Coordinate inputs from investment, development & construction, legal, tax, ESG, asset management and finance teams.
- Support responses to questions from Sky Distributed Energy management, Boards and the Octopus Energy Generation investment team.
- Track approval conditions through to completion.

Transaction structuring & closing
- Assess alternative transaction structures including share purchases, asset purchases, project-right acquisitions, deferred consideration and milestone-based payments.
- Work with legal and tax advisors to identify commercially workable transaction structures.
- Review key commercial provisions in transaction documentation and ensure alignment with the financial model and investment case.
- Support negotiations around purchase price mechanisms, milestones, warranties, indemnities, guarantees and completion conditions.
- Support transaction closing and the subsequent handover of acquired projects to development, construction or asset-management teams.

Origination & market assessment
- Screen and prioritise inbound acquisition opportunities.
- Prepare rapid assessments of portfolio quality, valuation and strategic fit.
- Work with local platform teams to identify attractive acquisition themes and counterparties.
- Support selected market mapping and origination initiatives across Southern Europe.
- Build a strong understanding of renewable-energy frameworks and their impact on project economics, particularly in Italy, Portugal and Spain.

Technology, AI & process improvement We want to use technology to execute a growing number of relatively granular transactions without proportionally increasing the size of the transaction team.

You will therefore help develop and use AI-enabled and data-driven transaction processes, including:

- automated extraction and comparison of information across project portfolios;
- AI-assisted data-room and document review;
- automated due diligence trackers and portfolio-level exception reporting;
- contract comparison and identification of non-standard provisions;
- rapid extraction of permitting, land, grid and commercial information;




- automation of repetitive modelling and investment-paper tasks;
- development of reusable transaction databases, templates and workflows.

The objective is to reduce low-value manual work and allow the team to spend more time on investment judgement and decision-making.

Di Cosa Hai Bisogno

We are looking for someone with strong analytical skills, commercial judgement and the ambition to take meaningful transaction responsibility early in their career.

You Should Have

- 2–4 years of relevant professional experience.
- Transaction experience gained in one or more of the following:
- investment banking / M&A; advisory;
- infrastructure or renewable-energy advisory;
- transaction services / corporate finance;
- infrastructure, private equity or renewable-energy investing;
- an IPP, utility or renewable-energy developer;
- M&A; / corporate law, combined with strong commercial and quantitative aptitude and a clear interest in moving into principal investing.

- Strong financial analysis skills and, for finance/investment profiles, demonstrated financial modelling capability.
- Good understanding of valuation, investment returns and transaction analysis.
- Experience working on due diligence and coordinating multiple workstreams.
- Ability to understand commercial and contractual documentation and identify the issues that materially affect an investment case.
- Strong Excel and PowerPoint skills.
- Fluent written and spoken English and either Italian or Portuguese, ideally both.
- A degree in finance, economics, business, engineering, law or another relevant discipline.

You will thrive in this role if you are analytical and commercially minded, comfortable taking ownership, able to distinguish material issues from noise and excited about working on the principal / buy-side within a fast-growing renewable-energy business. Cosa Offriamo

- A competitive compensation package, commensurate with experience and technical capabilities.
- Flexibility in organising your work, balancing business needs and personal circumstances.
- The protections and benefits provided under the Italian National Collective Labour Agreement for the Commerce sector (CCNL Commercio).
- An international environment, with the opportunity to contribute to the development of a local business while being part of the broader Octopus Energy ecosystem, offering exposure to international teams and opportunities for professional growth and career development.
- A company culture built on integrity, passion and collaboration, within a dynamic and stimulating working environment: still agile and entrepreneurial in size, while being part of a global group recognised as a leader in energy and innovation.
- The opportunity to play a meaningful role in a fast-growing pan-European renewable-energy platform, with increasing exposure to live M&A; transactions and senior decision-makers.
- Direct collaboration with investment professionals, local management teams and colleagues across different European markets.
- Exposure to acquisitions across different technologies, geographies and stages of development.
- The opportunity to help shape scalable, technology- and AI-enabled investment processes

Cosa Ti Aspetta

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📌 M&A Associate (Milano)
🏢 Coralsun
📍 Milano