India: Vector Green Energy seeks to raise $164m through green bond
US-based Global Infrastructure Partners’ (GIP) Indian green energy platform, Vector Green Energy plans to raise Rs1237 crore through a green bond in the Indian capital market.
“CRISIL Ratings has assigned its ‘Provisional CRISIL AAA/Stable’ ratings to the 581 crore non-convertible debentures (NCDs) of Yarrow Infrastructure Pvt Ltd (YIPL) which is part of Vector Green Restricted Group (VGRG) of six special purpose vehicles (SPVs),” the rating agency said in a statement on Wednesday.
GIP is an infrastructure-focused global private equity player and manages $70 billion of assets including 15GW of renewable projects.
Of Vector Green’ 652 MW wind and solar power project portfolio in India across a dozen states, a substantive part of it was acquired from IDFC Alternatives in 2018. Vector Green had also acquired 306MW solar projects from RattanIndia Group in September last year.
Aditya Aggarwal, GIP India partner could not be immediately reached for comments. “The rating reflects strong revenue visibility and counter party profile, co-obligor structure of SPVs providing diversity benefit and healthy financial risk profile. These strengths are partially offset by exposure to risks inherent in operating solar energy assets and refinancing risk,” the Crisil statement said.
There is a growing interest for Indian green energy firms’ bonds. The latest case in point Greenko Energy Holdings raising $940 million for refinancing through its bond issue.
Mint earlier reported about GIP exploring an infrastructure investment trust (InvIT) for Vector Green Energy, to raise
around $100 million in equity.
This comes at a time when India’s solar power tariffs have touched a record low of 1.99 per unit. Also, this low tariff resulted in tariff-shopping with Gujarat Urja Vikas Nigam Ltd cancelling the Letters of Award for 700MW of solar power generation given to firms including GIP’s Vena Energy.
Source: dealstreetasia
