The manager of Cromwell EREIT (CEREIT) has announced that it has entered into a EUR180 million ($251 million) sustainability loan facility.
The loan has a final maturity date of four years from the date of its first utilisation, and CEREIT says it will be used for repaying the majority of the outstanding borrowings under CEREIT’s existing debt facility, due to expire in November 2023.
It will also be used to repay part of the drawn amounts under CEREIT’s revolving credit facility of EUR200 million due to expire in 2024 .
The sustainability loan facility includes what is known as an accordion feature, providing flexibility to increase the size of the facility to up to EUR230 million.
It has three sustainability-linked key performance indicators that are set and measured on an annual basis over a four-year period.
The first KPI is an incremental increase in the numeric overall score of the annual real estate assessment issued by the Global Real Estate Sustainability Benchmark (GRESB) for CEREIT.
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The second is an increase in the number of green building certifications achieved for CEREIT.
The last KPI, - which CREIT believes is the first of such targets set in the Singapore market - is a percentage increase in the number of green clauses over the total number of leases.
This KPI is designed to improve CEREIT's Scope 3 emissions reporting and performance, given that green clauses typically require tenant-customers to report their environmental data.
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Scope 3 emissions are defined by the US EPA as emissions from the result of activities from assets not owned or controlled by the reporting organisation, but that the organisation indirectly impacts in its value chain.
Separately, Fitch Ratings recently affirmed CEREIT’s long-term issuer default rating (IDR) at “BBB-” with a “stable” outlook.
Fitch has also affirmed the “BBB-” senior unsecured rating on the trust's EUR1.5 billion medium-term note programme and EUR500 million outstanding unsecured notes.
Shares of CEREIT closed at $2.33 on Oct 14, down four cents or 1.69% lower than its previous close.
