Access to capital

GRI 103: Management approach (103-1, 103-2, 103-3)

Relevance

Alpiq’s power plants, purchase contracts and trading activities are capital-intensive and have a long-term nature. This makes access to capital to secure the company’s refinancing capability an important pillar of Alpiq’s business model. The ability to ensure access to capital at all times and ensure the company’s ability to operate in the capital market is extremely important to Alpiq.

Management approach

As a result of this capital dependence, Alpiq promptly defined a financial strategy that reduces the financing risk on the liabilities side. The associated methods include the diversification of the financing sources, regarding the markets, instruments, counterparties and maturities. The financial policy aims to keep Alpiq’s credit rating in the investment grade range. Further information on capital management is provided in section 3.1 of the 2020 consolidated financial statements of Alpiq Holding Ltd.

In addition to classic financial policy measures, ESG criteria are becoming increasingly important in the financial markets. Alpiq recognises the importance of ESG ratings. They create opportunities and potential that Alpiq will look to exploit. In future financing activities, Alpiq intends to make use of ESG criteria to expand the investor base as well as to reach favourable pricing arrangements. Financial counterparties and service providers will also be assessed from ESG perspectives in future.

Assessment

Over the past few years, Alpiq has gone through a comprehensive restructuring process that has resulted in a substantial reduction in gross debt. The implementation of the financial policy measures ensured that Alpiq’s capacity to refinance was never at risk. From today’s perspective, a sustainable financial strategy goes one step further and considers the economic as well as the environmental, social and governance dimension. Alpiq’s aim is to continue focussing on the financial credit assessment in future and also successfully participate in a sustainability impact assessment under the ESG criteria.

Alpiq is currently assessed by the following sustainability agencies: MSCI, Inrate and CDP.

Alpiq was not involved in preparing the assessment reports of these rating agencies.