econic
Raising senior and junior project financing pursuant to flexible framework agreements for the construction and operation of new projects
- After completing several case-by-case senior project financing raises for econic, Avaxa was engaged in May 2021 to assist in developing a long-term financing strategy to facilitate econic’s ambitious growth strategy;
- econic ensures that making a house more sustainable is smart, straightforward, and financially feasible. Through key partnerships and its digital platform "EOS," econic makes improving sustainability a breeze for consumers, housing corporations, property developers, and contractors. econic, employing over 150 people, also installs the equipment, including heat pumps, solar panels, batteries, and charging points, while offering the choice between purchasing or leasing the heating and energy systems on a monthly subscription basis;
- Following internal discussions based on a decision paper composed by Avaxa, the board and shareholders of econic decided to initiate the growth financing raise process as proposed by Avaxa;
- Avaxa assisted econic in financial modelling and by composing several documents (including an Information Memorandum, Request for Proposal, management presentation and Long-Form Term Sheet) with which a longlist of potential senior and junior lenders was approached. Furthermore, Avaxa coordinated the legal, technical and insurance due diligence;
- Key in the envisaged financing structure was to ensure sufficient surety of funding to allow econic to quickly finance new projects in its pipeline throughout the next years. To cater for that Avaxa structured several flexible and committed senior and junior framework financing agreements allowing econic to quickly access funding for new projects which meet a set of predefined criteria incorporated in these agreements;
- The big advantage for econic is that instead off raising financing for new projects on a case-by-case and very time consuming basis through the new financing package committed senior and junior project financing has been put in place upfront, thus reducing (management) time for econic’s (senior) management significantly allowing the high-growth scale-up to accelerate its growth strategy;
- Avaxa also structured an innovative Revolving Construction Facility pursuant to which econic is able to also finance the construction phase of new projects. Once these projects have been completed and have been either sold to the end customer or refinanced through the junior and senior project financing the commitment under the Construction Facility becomes available again, making it truly Revolving;
- As a result of the competitive process, including management meetings with selected potential lenders, Avaxa obtained multiple term sheets, with competitive terms & conditions, providing econic with optionality; and
- Through tight process management, Avaxa managed to close the EUR 85m financing raise with Triodos Bank, ASR, Rabobank and Meewind in December 2022, against very competitive and in particular flexible terms and conditions. The new asset financing enables econic to make a significant contribution to accelerating the energy transition in the Netherlands.
- For more information: read the FD article
