BNP Paribas has helped Crown Holdings close its $3.25bn sustainability-linked syndicated credit facilities.
BNP Paribas served as joint sustainability coordinator, working with Crown to integrate a sustainability feature into its credit facilities.
Crown is the first packaging company in the Americas to secure sustainability-linked terms for its syndicated credit facilities, and represents one of the largest sustainability-linked loans raised to date globally.
Crown signed an amendment to its existing credit facilities to, among other things, upsize its prior $2.7 billion syndicated credit facilities due April 2022, reset the maturity date to December 2024 and include financing terms that reduce or increase Crown’s borrowing costs based on any changes in its management score per Sustainalytics.
This management score reflects Sustainalytics’ assessment of Crown’s management of environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues. The transaction complements Crown’s other recent sustainability commitments.
“We are excited to be the first packaging company in the Americas to issue a syndicated sustainability linked credit facility,” said Kevin Clothier, vice president and treasurer at Crown Holdings. “We have many efforts underway to make Crown a more sustainable company and we believe the new facility demonstrates our commitment to sustainability by linking our borrowing cost to Sustainalytics’ view of management’s ESG performance.”
Last month, BNP Paribas collaborated with JetBlue Airways to close the first sustainability-linked revolving credit facility for an airline. The bank also closed the first sustainability-linked syndicated credit facility in Canada with WSP Global, one of the world’s leading professional services firms, and in January, it closed a bi-lateral, incentive-linked corporate revolving credit facility with Brookfield Renewable Partners, one of the first SLLs offered in Canada.
Yardley, PA-based Crown Holdings, through its subsidiaries, is a global supplier of rigid packaging products to consumer marketing companies, as well as transit and protective packaging products, equipment and services to a broad range of end markets.
