AXA IM Alts said on Thursday that its flagship European open-ended real estate fund AXA CoRE Europe has priced a seven year €500 mln green bond offering with an ambitious Green Finance Framework.
The Fund is managed by AXA IM Alts’ Real Assets team2 on behalf of a wide range of investors across Europe, North America and Asia including 60+ third party clients.
The Green Bond, which represents the first issuance undertaken by AXA CoRE Europe, attracted strong demand with a 4x oversubscribed orderbook amounting to €1.8 bn. The Green Notes were placed across a broad range of 80 European and international institutional investors.
The Green Notes pay a coupon of 0.75% and the issue price of the Green Notes is 99.364%.
The proceeds of the Green Bond will be used to replace a number of existing debt facilities while reducing the Fund’s average cost of debt and improving average maturity.
Goldman Sachs International acted as Sole Global Co-ordinator and Bookrunner on the transaction.
Isabelle Scemama, global head of AXA IM Alts, commented: ‘The success of the Fund’s inaugural Green Bond is an important achievement for the AXA IM Alts platform and a further indication of our overriding ambition to provide market leading returns to our clients while at the same time pursuing strategies and investments that allow us to make a positive contribution to society and improve tomorrow.’
Timothé Rauly, global head of Fund Management at AXA IM Alts, said: ‘In addition to the immediate benefits of reducing the cost of debt and extending the average debt maturity, the issue will diversify the source of financing. The capital structure of the Fund remains unchanged. This access to the debt capital market will facilitate the growth of the Fund and reinforces its access to larger core investments where there is less competition.’
