Moody's assigns Leeward Renewable Ba3

Moody's Investors Service said it assigned a first-time Ba3 corporate family rating to Leeward Renewable Energy Operations, LLC. Concurrently, Moody's assigned a Ba3 rating to Leeward Renewable's senior unsecured notes due in 2029, a Ba3-PD probability of default rating and an SGL-2 speculative grade liquidity rating. The outlook is stable.

The notes will be guaranteed on a senior unsecured basis by the issuer's wholly owned subsidiaries, which will also guarantee the issuer's new $100 million four-year secured revolving credit facility. Leeward will also assign a $200 million bank letter of credit facility to the issuer before year-end 2021.

"The Ba3 CFR assigned to Leeward Renewable considers that the majority of the company's renewable energy fleet operates under long-term contracts with creditworthy counterparties and benefits from geographic diversity," said Nati Martel, a Moody’s vice president and senior analysts, in a press release.

“We calculate that the generating portfolio's remaining contracted life will hover at around nine years at year-end 2021. Our estimate incorporates the new wind assets with a total installed capacity of around 430 MW currently under construction, including two repowering projects, that are expected to achieve commercial operation before the end of year,” Martel added.

Net proceeds of around $365 million will be used largely to repay debt, including the balance of around $262 million outstanding under a term loan, as well as to pay the cost of unwinding an existing interest rate swap. The issuer will also distribute around $83 million to its direct shareholder, Leeward Renewable Energy, LLC for the repayment of a bridge facility incurred to help fund the acquisition of certain solar assets from First Solar, Inc. at the end of March 2021. The issuer will hold the balance of around $5 million in cash.

© 2015 Prospect News.
All content on this website is protected by copyright law in the U.S. and elsewhere. For the use of the person downloading only.
Redistribution and copying are prohibited by law without written permission in advance from Prospect News.
Redistribution or copying includes e-mailing, printing multiple copies or any other form of reproduction.