Bogotá, November 2020. Since 2015, Pei, the leading real estate investment vehicle in the country, managed by Pei Asset Management S.A.S., has held authorization from the Superintendencia Financiera de Colombia (SFC) to carry out one or more issuances of Ordinary Bonds through a public offering under the global limit of its Ordinary Bond Issuance and Placement Program. This Issuance and Placement Program initially had an authorized global limit of COP 500,000,000,000, which was later expanded to COP 1,500,000,000,000 in 2019.
With the two Ordinary Bond issuances carried out in 2018 and 2019, each for COP 500,000,000,000, with oversubscription levels of 1.9x in the 2018 issuance and 1.6x in 2019, PEI has built a yield curve of issuances well received by the market, through which it has diversified its funding sources and terms. The tenors of the short-, medium-, and long-term series issued range from 3 to 25 years, helping align the term of the debt with the term of contract maturities.
In line with its goal of incorporating sustainable and responsible investment practices into its securities issuances, on September 23, 2020, PEI obtained authorization from the SFC to amend its Issuance and Placement Program to include the option of issuing Green Bonds and to add Commercial Paper as new securities to be issued under its global limit. Based on this amendment, PEI’s Credit-Content Securities Issuance and Placement Program now offers a varied range of different securities, financial terms, and placement tenors for managing its capital structure.
Green Bonds are a type of Ordinary Bond whose proceeds are used exclusively to finance or refinance, in whole or in part, eligible green projects, whether new or existing. In addition, Green Bonds must comply with the standards and principles of the International Capital Market Association, also known as the “Green Bond Principles.”
Commercial Paper, for its part, consists of credit-content securities whose term, counted from the issuance date to the maturity date, is less than one year, and which are secured by all of the issuer’s assets, present or future, without creating a specific lien that would grant them special priority relative to other creditors.
Among the advantages of having an Issuance and Placement Program is the ability to take advantage of potential liquidity windows in the securities market within a given timeframe. In the words of Jairo Corrales, president of Pei Asset Management S.A.S.: “Access to financing through the capital markets has been a very valuable tool for optimizing Pei’s capital structure. This expanded limit and the inclusion of green bonds and commercial paper will allow us to continue capturing opportunities to access this type of financing, aligned with our sustainability goals and with the timing associated with our business model.”