IFC, Thomas Lloyd set $330-M lending facility for RE projects

Manila Bulletin
by Myrna Velasco March 4, 2014 

The International Finance Corporation (IFC) of the World Bank Group and Europe’s Thomas Lloyd Group Ltd. have inked a mandate-letter for the provision of $330-million lending portfolio for renewable energy (RE) projects in the Philippines. 
This will be in the form of senior debt through the managed co-lending portfolio program and other associated IFC funding facilities. 
A press statement noted that the facility “will augment the $87 million of development and construction capital already deployed or committed by the Thomas Lloyd Group of Companies and the Thomas Lloyd Cleantech Infrastructure Fund.” 
The credit window provided by both lending institutions, as emphasized, “will be used to construct and operate a portfolio of three solar facilities and three biomass facilities” in Negros. 
IFC and Thomas Lloyd Group said the transaction could be a platform for expanding investments in the Philippine renewable energy sector. 
According to Thomas Lloyd executive director and head of project finance Tony Coveney, “the Philippines provided a great opportunity for both us and the IFC to bring permanent jobs and sustainable energy supply to the country,” stressing further that such initiative could hopefully bring power supply to somehow-neglected local communities. 
Considerably, RE is a sunshine industry with some promise to augment the country’s teetering power supply and solution to many blackout ridden off-grid areas. 
IFC had indicated serious interest to bankroll RE projects in the Philippines, although at some point, it raised reservations when government had been fickle on its rules-crafting and policy enforcements. 
Thomas Lloyd, for its part, has been advising and financing development of RE facilities in the country for the past five years already. 
Its “lending fingerprints” had been etched on the 22-megawatt solar power project of San Carlos Solar Energy Inc., which is targeted for completion this month. 
“This will be the first utility-scale renewable energy project built in the country to take advantage of the feed-in-tariff introduced by the government under the Renewable Energy Act,” the European investment firm averred. 
ThomasLloyd was also instrumental in financing the 19.99MW biomass power facility of San Carlos Biopower Inc., another project vehicle under Bronzeoak Philippines. 
From this venture, several more renewable energy projects are expected to take off, especially those already blueprinted in Negros sites.  source