PIF-backed ACWA Power raises $750mln from maiden sukuk

RIYADH: ACWA Power, the utility developer backed by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF), on Tuesday announced it had raised SR2.8 billion ($750 million) from its first sukuk issuance.

The sukuk will have a seven-year tenor and was 1.8 times oversubscribed, the company said in a statement. Fund managers, government funds and insurance companies accounted for about 30 percent of investors.

Paddy Padmanathan, president and CEO of ACWA Power, said: “The success of the issuance is proof of the wider market’s faith in KSA’s bond market and ACWA Power’s strong credit fundamentals, which have attracted a diverse pool of sophisticated investors.”

He said that the issuance is also “a vote of confidence from investors in our ability to capture large opportunities in Saudi Arabia and other growth markets, thanks to our de-risked and 100 percent contracted business model that is well diversified across different technologies and geographies.”

Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, the PIF, in November last year increased its stake in ACWA Power to 50 percent from 33.6 percent.

“We believe that ACWA Power will play a significant role in both driving and diversifying economic growth in the future, while also providing enduring commercial return for the people of the kingdom,” PIF said in a statement at the time.

Riyadh-based ACWA Power in January also signed a $125 million financing deal with the Arab Petroleum Investments Corporation. The five-year Shariah-compliant corporate facility will be used by ACWA Power to develop future projects.

The company has announced a number of large-scale international projects in recent months. In December, it signed an agreement for $300 million of renewable energy projects in Azerbaijan, including the country’s first wind power facility.

In April, the company struck a deal to build a wind power plant in northwest Uzbekistan, the largest of its kind in Central Asia and one of the largest in the world.