KUCHING, July 5 — Sarawak Energy Berhad (SEB), Malaysia’s largest renewable energy developer, successfully completed a total issuance of RM3.5 billion under its RM15 billion Sukuk Musyarakah Programme yesterday.

SEB group chief executive officer Datuk Sharbini Suhaili said the issuance comprised RM500 million five-year tenure, RM1 billion seven-year tenure and RM2 billion 10-year tenure Sukuk Musyarakah, which was completed via a book building exercise and priced at 4.05 per cent, 4.19 per cent and 4.27 per cent respectively, with a commendable final book-to-cover ratio of 3.05 times.

"The book building exercise garnered one of the highest order books across Malaysia’s debt capital market transactions with the amount close to RM11 billion and received strong support from a diversified distribution of both local and foreign investors,” he said in a statement.

He said a number of them are first-time investors from prominent financial institutions, including fund management companies, banks, pension funds, and insurance entities.

"This is a testament of investors’ strong confidence and unwavering support for SEB,” he said, adding that the issuance concluded after a marketing period of over a month, which included an Investors townhall session held on June 9 with overwhelming participation from over 150 attendees from the financial community and representatives from SEB.

The townhall session aimed to provide stakeholders with transparency with regards to the company’s strategic direction and also showcased its commitment to engaging with stakeholders.

Sharbini provided an overview of the company’s transformation journey and spoke in depth on its growth agenda, key projects, financial performance highlights and outlined the group’s sustainability initiatives.

"In the past decade, we transformed our generation mix, which is now focused on renewable hydropower.

"The transformation has enabled us to significantly decarbonise our power system and grow our annual sales revenue by more than four times, to a new record of almost RM7 billion in 2022,” he added.

He said SEB has been able to leverage its investments in renewable hydropower to provide one of the lowest and most competitive tariffs in the region.

He said this has led to an influx of demand from investors who are seeking clean and renewable energy, something that has become increasingly important in the face of global warming.”

"To meet this demand, we are ramping up our generation capacity and have established long-term plans to maintain 60 per cent renewable energy in our generation mix, in line with the Sarawak government’s Post Covid-19 Development Strategy or PCDS 2030.

Sharbini also said SEB, which is rated AAA by local credit rating agency, RAM, has also secured investment grade international credit ratings from Moody’s and S&P, with ratings of A3 and A-, respectively, aligning with the ratings of Sarawak and Malaysia.

This achievement, said Sharbini, is part of Sarawak Energy’s regional powerhouse agenda to grow and diversify its income streams.