Originally published on CleanTechnica.
The owner of London Taxi Company, the manufacturer of London’s iconic black cabs, has raised $400 million in new funding through a green bonds sale, according to recent reports.
These new funds will reportedly be used to electrify the company’s fleet offerings — specifically, the development of the recently revealed hybrid TX5, amongst other things.
The Group Chief Financial Officer for Zhejiang Geely Holding Group Company (the current owner of London Taxi Company), Frank Li, commented: “This is a landmark for us, not only in the sense of the funds raised, but also the purpose.”
Bloomberg provides more:
Geely’s green bond was oversubscribed by close to 6 times, according to Angie Tang, a Hong Kong-based spokeswoman at Barclays. The company has no plans to issue another in the foreseeable future, Li said.
The transaction is the first credit-enhanced green bond offering from a global auto company, according to Barclays Plc, which was a joint coordinator of the issue with Bank of China Ltd, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, and Societe Generale SA. The bonds, maturing in 2021 have a 2.75 percent coupon, the lowest ever for dollar bonds in China’s auto industry, Barclays said.
In the next two weeks, Geely will move to a new factory in Coventry, England, where it will start work on producing a prototype of the TX5, said Li. Commercial sales are set to start in the fourth quarter of 2017. That’s in time for the deadline of Jan. 1, 2018, when London will require all new taxis to be zero-emission capable.
The new £300 million factory will reportedly produce up to 36,000 electric cabs a year once up and running. Considering that London currently only has around 23,000 cabs on its roads today, it seems pretty clear that the company is aiming to expand into new markets in the near future.