Antinuclear

Clean Energy Finance Corp is making a profit

Green investment bank profitable as Abbott axe looms, CEO Yates says, SMH, October 19, 2013 

Clean Energy Finance Corp., Australia’s green development bank earmarked for closing by Prime Minister Tony Abbott, is making a profit and prodding commercial banks to lend, according to its chief executive officer.

“We’re operating profitably already, with our contracted investments expected to earn an average return of around 7 percent,” which is above the bank’s capital cost of about 3 percent, Oliver Yates, CEO of the bank founded less than four months ago by the previous government, told delegates at a conference in London. He declined to comment on Abbott’s plan to close CEFC, citing public-service rules……

The development bank has built a loan portfolio of around $536 million and helped projects get debt and equity of about $2.2 billion, including from other institutions, Yates said at the Climate Markets & Investment Association event earlier this week. The deals will cut emissions by about 3.9 million metric tons of carbon dioxide annually, he said. They include wind farms and a tomato farm that uses solar energy to desalinate seawater.

‘Meaningful impact’

“We’ve been able to make a meaningful impact offering finance on a commercial basis,” Yates said. “Though we have the capacity to provide concessional loans, for the great majority of cases that hasn’t proved necessary. Our job is not to make it easy for the banks, but to stretch them and encourage them to join into transactions with us.”

The bank has demonstrated it can generate carbon reductions at a net benefit to the taxpayer of $2.40 a ton of carbon dioxide, he said. http://www.smh.com.au/business/carbon-economy/green-investment-bank-profitable-as-abbott-axe-looms-ceo-yates-says-20131019-2vt12.html#ixzz2iNfY7eQ1

October 21, 2013 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | AUSTRALIA - NATIONAL, business, energy, politics