ACEN Corp. issued and listed on Thursday its maiden peso-denominated ASEAN Green Bonds worth P10 billion to fund its renewable energy expansion.
The green bonds carry a fixed interest rate of 6.0526 percent per annum for five-year tenor under its P30-billion debt securities program registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The bonds were 8.6 times oversubscribed on robust demand, with strong participation from leading institutional investors. The bonds were listed on the Philippine Dealing and Exchange Corp.
“We are grateful for the strong support of Philippine institutional and retail investors for the company’s maiden peso green bond issuance. The successful offering will help ACEN realize its vision of reaching 20 gigawatts of renewables capacity by 2030,” said ACEN president and chief executive Eric Francia.
The bonds comply with ASEAN Green Bond Standards, which require proceeds to be used exclusively to fund eligible green projects.
“Amidst the challenging macroeconomic environment, we are encouraged by the enthusiastic take-up of our bonds by the investing community. Our group is one of the country’s largest issuers of green bonds, and we are happy to contribute to the development of our nation’s debt capital market with our maiden peso green bond issuance,” said ACEN chief finance officer and treasurer Cora Dizon.
The Philippine Rating Services Corp. assigned the bonds with PRS Aaa, the highest possible rating.
ACEN said proceeds would be used to finance renewable energy projects in the Philippines, particularly the 283-megawatt San Marcelino Solar I farm in Zambales, the 42-MW expansion of the 72-MW Arayat-Mexico solar farm in Pampanga and the construction of the 133-MW Cagayan Solar farm in Lal-lo, Cagayan.
BDO Capital & Investment Corp. and BPI Capital Corp. were the joint issue managers. BDO Capital, BPI Capital, RCBC Capital Corp. and SB Capital & Investment Corp. acted as joint lead underwriters and book runners for the transaction.
ACEN and majority shareholder AC Energy and Infrastructure Corp., through their respective special-purpose vehicles, raised $1.6 billion of green bonds since 2019 to support financing for renewable energy investments and projects.
ACEN is the listed energy platform of the Ayala Group. The company has about 4,000 MW of attributable capacity in the Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia, India and Australia.