Helaba supports iliad as Sustainability Coordinator for syndicated credit facilities worth EUR 3 bn

In its role as one of the principal core banks of the French group iliad, a major European telecoms player focused on France, Italy and Poland, Helaba Landesbank Hessen-Thüringen has acted as Sustainability Coordinator and advised the company on the structuring and implementation of a sustainability link in its two core credit facilities with a total volume of EUR 3 billion. Helaba acted together with Crédit Industriel et Commercial (CIC) as Joint Sustainability Coordinator. The revolving credit facility of EUR 2 billion comprises a pool of 22 international banks and matures in 2029. The EUR 1 billion term loan has been provided by 21 inter­national financial institutions and matures in 2027.

Thomas Reynaud, CEO of the iliad Group, commented: "Incorporating sustainable develop­ment criteria into our financing policy under­scores our strong commit­ment to controlling our carbon emissions and promoting gender diversity within our organisation." "Sustainability has become a key factor for success and a cornerstone of our customer relation­ships", under­lined Tim Austrup, Head of Corporate Banking at Helaba. "For that reason, we are delighted to have provided critical support to the iliad Group in success­fully linking its ESG strategy to its group financing."

Previously, iliad had incorporated a so-called rendezvous clause into the two syndicated loans in 2022 that allows for sub­sequently linking the credit margin to CSR (corporate social responsibility) indicators. This provision enables specific key performance indicators (KPIs) and related targets to be agreed upon after the contract has been signed. In essence, the aim of a rendezvous clause is to define technical provisions for adjusting the ESG margin when the loan agreement is concluded, while setting the specific ESG KPIs and ESG target levels at a later date. At the same time, the borrower declares its intention in the scope of the rendez-vous clause to agree the required KPIs and targets as well as the way in which these are linked with the cost of financing by a specified deadline with the lenders.

Meanwhile, the iliad Group has success­fully finalised these sustainability-related KPIs and their corresponding targets and linked them to the credit margin. Pursuant to the Group's corporate strategy, the agreed KPIs and sustainability targets are focused on reducing the Group's greenhouse gas emissions, both within the company itself (Scopes 1 & 2) as well as in its entire value chain (Scope 3), in addition to promoting gender diversity by raising the proportion of female recruit­ment in the iliad Group. In future, the cost of financing will depend on compliance with these three ESG KPIs. The KPIs will be reported on an annual basis and will measure iliad's progress towards meeting its 2030 carbon reduction targets (Scopes 1 & 2 and Scope 3), which were validated by the Science Based Targets Initiative (SBTi) in early 2024, and in increasing the diversity of new employees.