Award for innovation – loan structure: Africa GreenCo
Africa GreenCo won this year’s ‘Award for innovation – loan structure’ with one Sustainable Debt Awards judge describing it as “a great way to unlock financing for independent power projects in this region.”
Africa GreenCo acts as a creditworthy off-taker of renewable energy from independent power projects (IPPs) in the region to be sold to private off-takers and on the Southern African Power Pool. GuarantCo provided a USD 27 million guarantee to Africa GreenCo to cover its payment obligations to IPPs over an eight-year period.
The GuarantCo guarantees are issued directly to the IPPs providing IPPs and their lenders with the comfort of GuarantCo’s high credit ratings to enter long-term power purchase agreements to build renewable energy projects across southern Africa.
The USD 27 million guarantee facility is expected to enable up to $270 million of investment in IPPs with up to 300MW of renewable energy forecast to be constructed.
Judges noted that the loan structure was “highly replicable” and a “successful template to follow”.
Green bond of the Year – corporate (APAC): IDI Sao Mai
IDI Sao Mai was named as the winner of this year’s ‘Green bond of the year – corporate (APAC)’ for Asia’s first aquaculture green bond and Vietnam’s first local currency-denominated green bond by a non-financial corporate issuer.
A 100% guarantee from GurantCo enabled a record-low coupon for catfish exporter IDI, attracting large institutional investors and opening up local debt markets for the borrower.
Proceeds from the bond were used to support business expansion under its green bond framework – including the development of fish seeding and processing facilities, enhancing of production capacity and value chain integration.
Green project bond of the year: AquaOne
Taking this year’s ‘Green project bond of the year’ award is AquaOne, with Vietnam’s first-ever verified green project bond in the water sector. The bond is also the longest-tenor project bond issuance in Vietnam to date.
GuarantCo provided a VND1.2 billion ($47 million) guarantee to AquaOne’s Hoa Binh-Xuan Mai Clean Water and Xuan Mai-Hanoi Clean Water Transmission, allowing the former to issue a landmark 20-year VND875.1 billion ($34.5 million) green bond to fund construction of water treatment and supply systems in Vietnam’s Hoa Binh province.
The bond also acted as a market maker for a new asset class by making long-dated private sector local currency bonds available to help life insurance companies manage their liabilities. It was structured in alignment with the International Capital Markets Authority’s Green Bond Principles and was provided a second-party opinion by Vietnamese credit rating agency FiinRatings.
