Sucden announces its first sustainability-linked Revolving Credit Facility
Sucden has successfully refinanced its Revolving Credit Facility, now a Sustainability-Linked Loan, for an increased amount of US$420 million.
Despite the context of the Covid-19 crisis with significant turbulences experienced by several commodities players during 2020, the facility was oversubscribed by a substantial amount. Sucden’s resilience during the crisis was illustrated by a slight increase in its 2020 revenues and profitability compared to 2019.
Conscious of its role and impact to land and societies, Sucden has decided to go further on its sustainability path by integrating some environmental and social features in its refinancing. This first Sustainability-Linked RCF – arranged by Societe Generale, Rabobank and ING – strengthens Sucden’s commitment to creating long-lasting solutions and fair business opportunities.
With this Sustainability-Linked RCF, Sucden focuses on its main ESG challenges via Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) on fighting against child labor, distributing shade tree seeds and reducing water consumption. KPIs cover Sucden’s main activities (cocoa, coffee and sugar) as well as three of the main regions in which Sucden operates (Africa with most cocoa plantations, Asia with most coffee plantations, Europe with main beetroot sugar production sites).
Sucden is particularly pleased that its banks have welcome its proposition for an innovative incentive mechanism in which all parties agree to allocate both the bonus and malus (i.e. the amounts receivable or payable by Sucden depending on whether it reaches or misses its ESG targets) to the Child Learning and Education Facility (CLEF) in Côte d’Ivoire. CLEF consists in a strong coalition of the Ivorian government, philanthropic partners and companies of the cocoa and chocolate industry, joining forces to combat child labour through quality education for all children in cocoa growing regions. CLEF is an initiative launched by the Jacobs Foundation.