Singtel Clinches $400M Green Loan for Data Centers

This article originally appeared in Light Reading.

Singtel has secured its first green loan amounting to S$535 million (US$401 million), which will be used to refinance the borrowings and support the operations of its two data centers – DC West and DC Kim Chuan – in Singapore.

The five-year green loan is provided by DBS, OCBC, Standard Chartered Bank, and UOB, which have also been appointed as green loan coordinators.

In a statement issued today, the telco operator said the two data centers must maintain at least a Green Mark GoldPlus certification from Singapore's Building and Construction Authority as part of the green loan criteria.

Both DC West and DC Kim Chuan have already attained the highest green building certification, Green Mark Platinum.

"Singtel is committed to aligning our borrowings with our environmental objectives, and we are pleased to work with DBS, OCBC, Standard Chartered Bank, and UOB to invest in a more sustainable future for everyone," said Arthur Lang, chief financial officer at Singtel Group.

Going green

Lang said Singtel is keen to expand its green financing initiatives

"We will build on the success of our sustainability-linked loans, bonds and other efforts, to further expand our portfolio of green financing initiatives under Olives, Singtel Group’s sustainable financing programme," he said.

Singtel operates the largest and most advanced data centers in the Lion City. In addition to DC Kim Chuan and DC West, which offer a combined 62MW of capacity, the telco operator recently broke ground on its new hyper-connected 58MW green data center, DC Tuas, in the city.

"We will also continue exploring ways to incorporate technologies such as liquid cooling and AI to further improve the efficiency of all our data centers, including our upcoming DC Tuas," said Lang.

In September, global investment firm KKR agreed to acquire a 20% stake in Singtel's regional data center business in a deal worth up to S$1.1 billion ($807 million). The investment puts the enterprise value of Singtel's overall regional data center business at S$5.5 billion ($4 billion).

Singtel has partnered Telkom and Medco Power in Indonesia and GULF and AIS in Thailand to develop data centers in Batam and Bangkok respectively. Singtel's data center portfolio will offer a total combined capacity of over 155MW once the upcoming sites are operational in 2025, with room to scale up to more than 200MW.