Dubai renewables firm Alcazar mulls green bond to raise up to $700m

CEO Daniel Calderon admitted it would be “a dream” to secure the additional funding from this avenue, although he stressed there are still “various options” on the table for Alcazar in terms of future investment.

Calderon told Arabian Business: “We have various options in front of us. We have received interest from some equity investors, that is correct. But we have also received interest from bond investors. We have worked closely with Standard Chartered on the debt capital market side.

“We have also worked closely with ratings agencies and we have done a pre-rating exercise that has confirmed that the company could be in a position to proceed with a substantial bond, somewhere between $600m-700 million.”

Founded seven years ago, Alcazar Energy initially invested in excess of $700 million to build seven power plants in Jordan and Egypt. Investment came from 19 different groups or organisations, including the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation, Mubadala Infrastructure Partners and two prominent family offices in the region.

“It is a dream that we had when we started (issuing a green bond),” said Calderon, who hoped to be in a position to finalise the funding in the next six months. “We could only imagine that something like that could be possible. At that time we didn’t have a portfolio of scale in the region. At the time also, if you talk to bond investors in New York, London, Hong Kong, they were not extremely interested in renewable energy in the region, it was still being seen as a bit of a novelty,” he added.

Alcazar currently employs 62 people from 16 countries. The construction of its seven power plants created 4,200 construction jobs in Jordan and Egypt, while total savings include nearly 28 million cubic metres of water during their 35 years of operation – and over 15 million tonnes of CO2 – producing enough electricity to power 275,000 homes annually.

Alcazar Energy currently employs 62 people from 16 countries

According to the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) Renewable Energy Market analysis for the GCC from 2019, by 2030, the region could save 354 million barrels of oil equivalent (a 23 percent reduction), create more than 220 500 jobs, reduce the power sector’s carbon dioxide emissions by 22 percent, and cut water withdrawal in the power sector by 17 percent based on the renewables targets already in place.

Calderon said: “This region needs $250 billion of investment just in the next ten years alone. There are several ideas that we have in the countries we are in and others. Right now, as you would expect, I am focusing on making sure that we have the right long-term financing in place. But yes, as soon as that is done hopefully we will be in a position to talk about our more exciting transactions and more exciting destinations.”