Aligned, a leading data center provider offering innovative, sustainable and adaptable colocation and build-to-scale solutions for cloud, enterprise, and managed service providers, has increased its senior secured credit facility, the first-ever U.S. data center sustainability-linked financing, by $250 million to $1.25 billion. TD Securities (USA) LLC, Goldman Sachs Bank USA, Deutsche Bank AG, New York Branch, Wells Fargo Securities, LLC, Citizens Bank, N.A., and Nomura Securities International, Inc. acted as joint bookrunners and joint lead arrangers for the facility, which is one of the largest private debt raises in data center history. Aligned engaged TD Securities (USA) LLC as the administrative and collateral agent; Goldman Sachs Lending Partners LLC as the syndication agent; and ING Capital LLC as the sustainability structuring agent.

“Aligned’s credit facility upsizing will provide increased financial capacity and flexibility to support the expansion of our data center portfolio in step with rising demand and further development of our core sustainability initiatives,” states Anubhav Raj, CFO, Aligned. “Our company’s position is that an investment in digital infrastructure requires an investment in sustainability, which is essential to positive, lasting impact on our environment as well as long-term value creation.”

Aligned met and successfully exceeded all the requirements of the $1 billion sustainability-linked credit facility issued in September 2020. Aligned’s sustainability-linked financing is tied to the company's core environmental, social and governance (ESG) objectives, and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), including a commitment to match 100% of Aligned's annual energy consumption to zero-carbon renewable energy by 2024; aligning the company's ESG reporting efforts with a global standard and ensuring ESG disclosure for Aligned stakeholders; and a commitment to having and reporting on a Total Recordable Incident Rate (TRIR) with respect to workplace safety.

“Among sophisticated hyperscale and enterprise companies, sound environmental stewardship is now a top-of-mind concern,” says Andrew Schaap, CEO of Aligned. “While no one company or organization can solve the world’s sustainability challenges, Aligned’s adaptive data center platform is instrumental in reducing environmental impact while lowering the total cost of ownership for customers — a win-win — and it’s gratifying that our relationship banks and investors recognize this by facilitating our ability to respond to continuously increasing demand.”

Aligned and ING Capital received the Environmental Finance 2021 Bond Award for the “Highly Commended, Sustainability-Linked Loan of the Year.” The Environmental Finance 2021 Bond Awards honor the market participants and leading sustainability-linked bonds and loans for their thought leadership, best practice or innovation.