Vivint Solar, a full-service residential solar provider, announced it has closed a fixed-rate, 18-year term debt facility with four institutional investors, totaling US$203 million. The new debt facility is a fully amortizing loan that relies on the contractual cash flows from four existing investment funds that comprise approximately 214MW and 30,000 residential solar systems.
Bank of America Merrill Lynch acted as sole syndication agent on the transaction and the loans earned an investment-grade BBB rating from Kroll. A portion of the proceeds will be used to repay outstanding borrowings under the company's existing non-recourse credit facility.
"This is a milestone transaction for Vivint Solar that demonstrates its access to an additional class of term debt lenders," said Thomas Plagemann, chief commercial officer and head of capital markets for Vivint Solar. "After closing the $313 million syndicated bank term loan facility in August 2016, this transaction completes the first full 'turn' of capital in our $375 million aggregation facility and validates the debt optimization strategy we outlined earlier last year."
In addition, the company also announced today that it closed an investment with Bank of America Merrill Lynch, an existing investor that had committed a US$100 million follow-on investment in tax equity financing, which will allow the installation of over 66 MWs of residential solar energy systems. This investment marks the closing of a portion of the tax equity commitments Vivint Solar received in November 2016.
"We are thrilled that Bank of America Merrill Lynch continues to support Vivint Solar and residential solar energy development," said Dana Russell, chief financial officer for Vivint Solar. "They have been a tremendous partner to us since our IPO in the fall of 2014."