Narrative
Full Description
Project narrative
On July 2, 2015, financial close was reached on a deal in which a syndicate of lenders entered into a $239 million USD syndicated hybrid debt financing facility with Coram California Development, L.P. — a special purpose vehicle (SPV) owned by Renewable Energy Trust Capital Inc. (RET Capital) — for the 102 MW Coram Brodie Wind Farm Acquisition Project. The facility included a $134.7 million USD term loan as well as $103.9 million USD of investment grade rated fixed rate notes. The debt facility carried a maturity period of nine years and was priced at 162.5 basis points (bps) over LIBOR. The secured notes, or the bond, has a tenor of 17 years, and will amortise starting in the tenth year, with a 13.5-year average life, and was priced at 4.52% at its issuance. Press releases at the time indicate that MUFG was the coordinating lead arranger and bookrunner for the debt, which were syndicated to Associated Bank, DZ Bank, and Zions Bank. Sometime after financial close in 2015, industry sources indicate that the China Bank of Communications entered into the deal. For the fixed notes, the placement agent and bookrunner was Mitsubishi UFJ Securities (USA), Inc., placed them with AIG Asset Management and Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association of America. RET Capital used the proceeds of the loan to acquire the 102 MW Coram Wind Project, an operational plant, near Tehachapi, California, located in Kern County. RET acquired the site from BAIF U.S. Renewable Power Holdings LLC. The site is more commonly referred to as Brookfield Tehachapi wind farm Coram Wind today, with phase 1 being known as Coram Wind and phase 2 called Cannon 2. The plant had entered into a 20-year power purchase agreement (PPA) with Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) to sell 100% of its output in 2010. RET sold the asset to Starwood Energy Group in 2021.
Staff comments
1. The individual contributions of the five known lenders to the $134.7 million USD term loan is unknown. For the time being, AidData has estimated BoCom's contribution by assuming that each lender contributed equally ($26,940,000 USD) to the loan syndicate. 2. The exact date that BoCom joined is unknown. For now, AidData has coded July 02, 2015 as the commitment date, as this was the financial closure date for the loan. This issue merits further investigation.