Farm Credit is again stretching its lending authority and this time the financing deal is especially egregious: Farm Credit lender CoBank is serving as the “sole lead arranger” for a loan to a multinational energy company building solar panels slated to power Facebook servers. Yes, you read that correctly: a Farm Credit lender, tasked with supporting farmers and ranchers, is instead financing a construction project that will ultimately benefit one of the largest tech companies in the world.
According to Renewables Now, CoBank is providing the “financing, comprising a construction loan, letter of credit facility and back-leverage term loan” for solar energy centers in Oregon. As Renewables Now explains, once operational, another company named PacifiCorp, “will buy the output of the solar plants under a long-term contract to supply Facebook’s data centre in Prineville, Oregon.”
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