Citicore Renewable Energy Corp. (CREC) plans to issue greens bonds next year to partially fund its aggressive pipeline of renewable projects.
CREC president Oliver Tan said in an interview the company was looking at issuing green bonds and was just waiting for interest rates to come down.
Green bonds are a type of fixed-income investment used to fund projects with a positive environmental impact.
“We will mostly likely issue the bonds next year because we want to wait for rates to go down,” Tan said.
He said the issue size of the proposed bonds remained to be finalized.
CREC’s medium term goal is to build 1,000 megawatts of additional renewable energy capacity annually in the next five years.
CREC secured funding for the first two 1,000-MW projects from its recent initial public offering and investment from SM Investments Corp.
It also secured a financing arrangement with Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. (RCBC) in April for up to P20 billion for the construction of multiple solar power plant projects in Batangas, Pampanga and Negros Occidental.
Tan said the company would use the proceeds from the planned green bonds offering to fund the third batch of 1,000 MW of renewable projects.
“CREC’s expanded balance sheet enable it to issue green bonds to fund third batch for gigawatt projects,” Tan said.
He also expects the company to generate internal funds from the solar projects that will come on stream from operating assets which will be used to fund subsequent renewable projects.
CREC aims to become one of the three largest power producers in the next five years with 5 gigawatts of operating capacity.
It has 10 operating solar assets with a combined installed capacity of 285.1 MW and a gross installed capacity pipeline of 6,466 MW in solar power.
CREC is the third listed company owned by the Megawide Group headed by Edgar Saavedra to be listed on the local bourse. The two others are Megawide Construction Corp. and Citicore Energy REIT Corp.
The Megawide Group raised more than P30 billion in fresh capital from the equities market through initial public offering and preferred shares offering.
