GuarantCo triumphs at the Environmental Finance Sustainable Debt Awards with three wins

  • Date written
  • April, 2025

GuarantCo, part of the Private Infrastructure Development Group (PIDG), scored three wins at the Environmental Finance Sustainable Debt Awards 2025. Judged by an independent panel – who are investors – the Awards seek to recognise those that excel, innovate, and contribute to the successful development of the expanding market of green, social, sustainability and sustainability-linked bonds and loans.

GuarantCo triumphs at the Environmental Finance Sustainable Debt Awards with three wins

Award for innovation – loan structure: Africa GreenCo

Africa GreenCo won this year’s ‘Award for innovation – loan structure’ with one Sustainable Debt Awards judge describing it as “a great way to unlock financing for independent power projects in this region.”

Africa GreenCo acts as a creditworthy off-taker of renewable energy from independent power projects (IPPs) in the region to be sold to private off-takers and on the Southern African Power Pool. GuarantCo provided a USD 27 million guarantee to Africa GreenCo to cover its payment obligations to IPPs over an eight-year period.

The GuarantCo guarantees are issued directly to the IPPs providing IPPs and their lenders with the comfort of GuarantCo’s high credit ratings to enter long-term power purchase agreements to build renewable energy projects across southern Africa.

The USD 27 million guarantee facility is expected to enable up to $270 million of investment in IPPs with up to 300MW of renewable energy forecast to be constructed.

Judges noted that the loan structure was “highly replicable” and a “successful template to follow”.

Green bond of the Year – corporate (APAC): IDI Sao Mai

IDI Sao Mai was named as the winner of this year’s ‘Green bond of the year – corporate (APAC)’ for Asia’s first aquaculture green bond and Vietnam’s first local currency-denominated green bond by a non-financial corporate issuer.

A 100% guarantee from GurantCo enabled a record-low coupon for catfish exporter IDI, attracting large institutional investors and opening up local debt markets for the borrower.

Proceeds from the bond were used to support business expansion under its green bond framework – including the development of fish seeding and processing facilities, enhancing of production capacity and value chain integration.

Green project bond of the year: AquaOne 

Taking this year’s ‘Green project bond of the year’ award is AquaOne, with Vietnam’s first-ever verified green project bond in the water sector. The bond is also the longest-tenor project bond issuance in Vietnam to date.

GuarantCo provided a VND1.2 billion ($47 million) guarantee to AquaOne’s Hoa Binh-Xuan Mai Clean Water and Xuan Mai-Hanoi Clean Water Transmission, allowing the former to issue a landmark 20-year VND875.1 billion ($34.5 million) green bond to fund construction of water treatment and supply systems in Vietnam’s Hoa Binh province.

The bond also acted as a market maker for a new asset class by making long-dated private sector local currency bonds available to help life insurance companies manage their liabilities. It was structured in alignment with the International Capital Markets Authority’s Green Bond Principles and was provided a second-party opinion by Vietnamese credit rating agency FiinRatings.

NOTES TO EDITORS

About GuarantCo

GuarantCo mobilises private sector local currency investment for infrastructure projects and supports the development of financial markets in lower income countries across Africa and Asia. GuarantCo is part of the Private Infrastructure Development Group (PIDG) and is funded by the governments of the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Australia and Sweden, through the PIDG Trust, the Netherlands, through FMO and the PIDG Trust, and Global Affairs Canada plus France through a stand-by facility. GuarantCo is rated AA- by Fitch and A1 by Moody’s. Since 2005, GuarantCo has enabled USD 6.2 billion of total investment and USD 5.2 billion of private sector investment, giving 45.2 million people improved access to infrastructure and creating around 229,000 jobs. GuarantCo’s activities are managed by GuarantCo Management Company which is part of Cardano Development www.guarantco.com

About PIDG

The Private Infrastructure Development Group (PIDG) is an innovative infrastructure project developer and investor which mobilises private investment in sustainable and inclusive infrastructure in sub-Saharan Africa and south and south-east Asia. PIDG investments promote socio-economic development within a just transition to net zero emissions, combat poverty and contribute to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). PIDG delivers its ambition in line with its values of pioneering, partnership, safety, inclusivity and urgency.
PIDG offers Technical Assistance for upstream, early-stage activities and concessional capital; its project development arm – which includes InfraCo – invests in early-stage project development and project and corporate equity. PIDG credit solutions include EAAIF (the Emerging Africa and Asia Infrastructure Fund), one of the first and more successful blended debt fund in low-income markets; GuarantCo, its guarantee arm that provides credit enhancement and local currency solutions to de-risk projects; and a growing portfolio of local credit enhancement facilities, which unlocks domestic institutional capital for infrastructure financing.
Since 2002, PIDG has supported 233 infrastructure projects to financial close, which provided an estimated 228 million people with access to new or improved infrastructure. PIDG is funded by the governments of the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Australia, Sweden, Global Affairs Canada and Germany. pidg.org