Kyobo Life, together with other Korean life insurance companies Heungkuk Life and Hanwha Life has completed the acquisition of the 41.3MW solar project in Kagoshima, Japan from Solariant Japan.
The three Korean life insurance companies have both an equity and a mezzanine debt financing with Shinhan Bank and Mitsubishi UFJ Leasing to provide senior project debt. The transaction deal has a total of 20.7 billion JPY or $172 million USD.
The 41.3MWp solar plant is scheduled to be completed in the first quarter of 2017 and will feed over 50 million kilowatt-hours of solar electricity annually to power more than 16,000 Japanese homes annually for the next twenty years.
According to the press release of Solariant Japan in PR News Wire, the 41.3MW solar plant will be installed with more than 132,000 PV modules. Genkai Capital, a Japanese asset management company with 228 billion JPY under management, and Tokyo Energy & Systems Inc, which is partially owned by Tokyo Electric Power Company, the largest electric utility in Japan, will be managing the solar plant.
"Solariant delivered on triple bottom line goals - environmental, social and economic - throughout the planning of the facility, which fit Kyobo Life's corporate sustainability management framework," said Daniel Kim and Ric Tan, both Managing Directors of Solariant.
With the acquisition of the solar plant, Kyobo Life became the first Korean institutional investor to join the UN Global Compact.
The solar power plant will compensate 740 million tons (37m x 20) of carbon - the equivalent of 266 acres of forests protected each year for 20 years, and taking 82 million cars miles off the road each year. Tokyo Energy & Systems, the construction contractor, is going to utilize local labor force for civil works and the installation of the solar facility.
Kyobo Life Insurance Co., LTD. is a Seoul-based insurance company that was founded in 1958. At present, the company is considered to one of the top three life insurance providers in South Korea with a total assets valued at 80.1 trillion KRW (USD 68.5 billion).
