Australia and New Zealand Banking Group (ANZ) has announced the successful completion of the US$315mn debt portion of funding for the Philippines’ largest wind farm, the Burgos Wind Farm project.

ANZ acted as co-ordinating arranger, mandated lead arranger, documentation bank, offshore account bank, swap bank and intercreditor agent, ECA facility agent and US dollar (USD) facility agent.

Other lead lenders in the deal were Norddeutsche Landesbank Girozentrale, DZ Bank, ING Bank, Maybank, Security Bank Corporation, Philippine National Bank, BDO Unibank and Land Bank of the Philippines. Eksport Kredit Fonden (EKF) is guaranteeing a portion of the USD debt.

Senior manager of project and export finance at ANZ, Michael Lock, who worked closely on the deal, confirms to GTR the debt portion of the facility has three 15-year tranches: a Philippine peso (PSP) tranche, making up 40% of the total debt portion, and two USD tranches that combine to make up the remaining 60%. Of the USD debt portion, 80% is secured by an EKF guarantee, whilst 20% remains unsecured.

“The uncovered portion of USD debt is tied to the EKF-backed tranche,” Lock tells GTR. “We worked closely with EKF on this deal. ECAs like to have a lead bank to work with, and for a deal of this length, the security of an ECA guarantee is essential.”

The project is being developed by EDC Burgos Wind Power Corporation and is expected to cost a total of US$450mn. It is due to have a rated capacity of 150MW, including 50 Vestas V90-3.0MW wind turbine generators built across approximately 600 hectares of land.

According to Locke, issues surrounding land ownership in the Philippines have the potential to make lengthy projects that cover large areas very challenging, but were not enough to put banks off in this instance.

“Land and related security issues became a talking point at the negotiating table. It’s a complicated issue in the Philippines, and a point that participating banks had to get their heads around,” he says.

“The transmission lines will cover such a vast area, and when approaching land owners, it’s very much a ‘knocking on the door’ game.”

Commenting on the significance of the deal for ANZ, the bank’s CEO for the Philippines and Thailand, Panadda Manoleehakul, says: “This is a milestone transaction for the Philippines renewable energy industry, which demonstrates the focus and strength of both ANZ and EDC in this sector.”