AC Energy Inc., Ayala Corp.’s energy platform, plans to spend $1 billion for three projects with a combined capacity of 800 megawatts in three countries.
AC Energy president and chief executive Eric Francia said these renewable energy projects include a 350-MW solar project in Australia, a 400-MW to 500-MW win facility in Vietnam and a 100-MW solar plant in the Philippines.
“All in all, that’s about 800 MW that we’re hoping to reach financial close in the next 12 to 18 months across these three markets,” Francia said.
“Estimated project cost is around $1 billion for the projects in the three countries. Not all of that is equity, there is also debt. Approximately, debt is over $600 million to $700 million,” he said.
Francia said the company was expecting to get a financial closing for the first half of its 700-MW solar project in Australia in the first semester.
“For Vietnam, I think we are hoping to do another probably around 400 to 500 MW of wind. We are also hoping to do in the Philippines over 100 MW of solar,” he said.
Francia said “a lot of the equity” raised from AC Energy’s green bonds amounting to $410 million could be used for the three projects.
“Once we were successful in deploying that, I can argue that it would be the primary use of the green bonds. The 800 MW will basically account for the majority, if not all the green bond usage. The green bond can also finance some of the past green projects,” Francia said.
Two of the world’s largest multilateral institutions”•the International Finance Corp. and the Asian Development Bank”•invested in the AC Energy green bonds totaling $95 million.
The bonds were issued through AC Energy’s wholly-owned subsidiary AC Energy Finance International Ltd. and guaranteed by AC Energy.
IFC provided an anchor investment of $75 million to complete the public placement of AC Energy’s five-year green bond.
The additional $75 million of five-year bonds with a coupon of 4.75 percent will be listed on the Singapore Stock Exchange.
The initial $225-million issuance was listed on Jan. 30.
AC Energy also completed the $110-million private placement of ten-year bonds with a coupon of 5.25 percent with ADB as one of the main investors with an investment of $20 million. The ten-year bonds will also be listed on SGX-ST.
Both the 5-year and 10-year bonds totaling $410 million are the first Climate Bond certified, publicly listed US dollar green bond in Southeast Asia.