28 December 2023
X-Press Feeders (“XPF”) has signed a sustainability-linked loan agreement with investors including the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (“AIIB”) which will support XPF in our ambitions to significantly reduce carbon emissions.
XPF is using proceeds from the US$165 million loan to finance the purchase of three 7,000 TEU [1] newbuild containerships, supporting the company’s large fleet renewal program and replacing older, less-efficient vessels with new, more fuel-efficient ones.
Sustainability-linked finance incentivises the achievement of environmental, social or governance targets through pricing incentives. This financing is XPF’s first sustainability-linked loan, and pricing incentives are tied to our commitment to reduce the Annual Efficiency Ratio (“AER”) [2] of our fleet by 40 percent between 2019 and 2027. The target, which will be reviewed in 2027, ties with XPF’s global emission reduction target of halving our absolute emissions by 2040 and achieving net-zero emissions by 2050, supporting the broader shipping industry’s efforts to align itself with the Paris Agreement.
About the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank
The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) is a multilateral development bank whose mission is financing the Infrastructure for Tomorrow-infrastructure with sustainability at its core. We began operations in Beijing in January 2016 and have since grown to 109 approved members worldwide. We are capitalized at USD100 billion and Triple-A-rated by the major international credit rating agencies. Collaborating with partners, AIIB meets clients’ needs by unlocking new capital and investing in infrastructure that is green, technology-enabled and promotes regional connectivity.
More information about the project and AIIB can be found at AIIB’s project website.
[1] Twenty-foot equivalent unit
[2] AER calculates a vessel’s operational carbon intensity through dividing emissions by distance travelled
