Ascott Residence Trust issues $200 mil sustainability-linked bond
Last year, ART obtained the initial hospitality trust eco-friendly finance in Singapore, which was utilized to finance its first growth job – lyf one-north, a co-living residence certified with Green Mark GoldPLUS by the Building and Construction Authority of Singapore.
Earnings from the bond issuance are going to be spent to re-finance ART’s existing borrowings. DBS Bank is the single sustainable money advisor, lead manager as well as bookrunner for the purchase.
Ascott Residence Trust (ART) has released a $200 million sustainability-linked bond, making it the initial Singapore-listed property trust and also the first hospitality trust internationally to release such a bond.
In an April 20 announcement, ART says the deal was oversubscribed by 2.2 times on the back of strong need, leading to the bond concern being upsized from $150 million to $200 million. The last orderbook closed at $335 million with orders from throughout 47 accounts. In regards to investor allocation, 79% of the bond issuance went to institutional capitalists, while private banking capitalists represented 21%.
According to ART, the issuance of the sustainability-linked bond has actually netted the trust a green premium, or “greemium”, which describes the lower price of funding from providing financial debt that has a positive environmental influence as contrasted to typical bonds. ART has also devoted to a sustainability efficiency target of greening 50% of its overall profile by 2025. To attain this, the buildings should obtain a regionally, nationally or internationally acknowledged environment-friendly structure specification or certification by an acknowledged third-party.
The bond was issued under ART’s $2 billion Multicurrency Debt Issuance Programme under its newly-established Sustainability-Linked Finance Framework. The five-year bond is going to grow in April 2027 as well as bring a dealt with discount price of 3.63% per annum, paid semi-annually in arrears.
” Sustainability is origin to everything we do at ART. Straightening our funding needs with our sustainability efforts to build a greener portfolio shows ART’s focus on responsible growth,” claims Beh Siew Kim, CEO of ART. “As of 31 Dec 2021, 33% of ART’s portfolio is green-certified and also we target to green the rest of our portfolio by 2030.”
