French export credit agency Bpifrance is covering a £5bn loan from 13 commercial banks to help finance the construction of the Sizewell C nuclear power station in England.
The facility, structured as a green loan, sits alongside a £36.5bn term loan from the UK’s National Wealth Fund, which was announced earlier this year, as well as a £500mn working capital facility.
Bpifrance has secured refinancing from French public development bank Sfil, according to a November 4 statement.
BNP Paribas acted as joint debt advisor to Sizewell C, with HSBC as French authorities and green loan co-ordinator, and Santander as documentation co-ordinator on the Bpifrance facility.
The other lenders on the Bpifrance loan are ABN Amro, BBVA, Crédit Agricole, CaixaBank, Citibank, Crédit Industriel et Commercial (CIC), Lloyds Bank, Natwest, Natixis and Société Générale.
A “subset” of those banks is providing the working capital facility, the statement said.
Investment bank Rothschild & Co advised Sizewell C on its equity and debt, while Clifford Chance was the legal adviser.
“In Sizewell C the UK has pioneered a model for financing new build nuclear which works for both consumers and private investors and has attracted considerable interest from other countries with nuclear power development plans,” the company’s joint managing directors Julia Pyke and Nigel Cann said.
The reactor, being built on the coast of Sussex in eastern England, is the first in the UK to use a regulated asset base model for financing, which allows investors to earn returns during the construction phase.
The structure has previously been used in projects such as Terminal 5 of London’s Heathrow Airport.
French energy company EDF is the fourth-largest shareholder in Sizewell C, and is providing engineering and design services for the development. Other top shareholders include the UK government and Canadian institutional investor La Caisse.
Simone Rossi, EDF UK’s chief executive, said “the success of the debt and equity raising for the financing of Sizewell C highlights the market confidence in nuclear technology for the energy transition”.
Construction of Sizewell C began in 2023 and is expected to become operational in the second half of next decade.
