SINGAPORE (THE BUSINESS TIMES) - Temasek Holdings and HSBC Holdings have officially launched their sustainable infrastructure debt financing company, Pentagreen Capital.
The partnership, first announced in September 2021, will start with US$150 million (S$209 million) of capital jointly committed by Temasek and HSBC, with the goal of making US$1 billion of loans within the next five years.
In a statement on Tuesday (Aug 30), the two founding partners said Pentagreen aims to deploy "blended finance at scale over time" to accelerate the development of sustainable infrastructure in Asia.
The company will operate independently from its founding partners, who will be represented on Pentagreen's board of directors through HSBC's head of global banking for South Asia and global head of real assets finance Stuart Lea, as well as Temasek's managing director for investment, financial services Connie Chan.
Mr Kai Nargolwala - who is also chairman of Singapore Pools and 65 Equity Partners' boards of directors - will be chairing Pentagreen's new board.
He is joined by Mr Marat Zapparov, Pentagreen's chief executive who brings close to two decades of experience to the company including over 15 years in infrastructure, energy, and real assets financing.
Mr Zapparov previously headed the International Finance Corporation's Asia "Upstream" unit and was senior director of infrastructure at financial solutions provider Clifford Capital in Singapore. He has also held roles in the HSBC Resources and Energy project finance group in Hong Kong, as well as the KPMG Global Infrastructure group in London.
Commenting on his appointment, Mr Zapparov highlighted both HSBC and Temasek's commitment to the goals of the Paris Agreement and to developing Asia's infrastructure ecosystem.
"Pentagreen is ideally positioned to be an alternative provider of debt capital to accelerate the development of sustainable infrastructure in Asia. We aim to fill the gap between traditional financing options from banks and development financiers and catalyse the flow of capital to innovative projects by bringing flexible debt financing solutions to the table," he said.
