To fund its ESG initiatives, Vittoria issues a 5 million sustainability-linked bond through UniCredit

Bicycle tyre specialist UniCredit issues a 5 million ESG sustainability-linked bond to fund capacity and innovation investments. UniCredit will give Vittoria a bonus in the form of a coupon rate reduction if the sustainability targets set at the time of the bond issue are met.

Vittoria, the bicycle tyre specialist owned by its management and WISE Equity, issues a 5 million ESG sustainability-linked bond through UniCredit to fund capacity and innovation investments in Thailand and Italy.

UniCredit has fully subscribed to the 5-million-euro bond with a 6-year maturity. As a result of this innovative financing operation, a strengthened partnership between Vittoria Group and UniCredit is formed, which will be expanded in the coming months through corporate and retail services for the Vittoria Group and Vittoria Park.

UniCredit will give Vittoria a bonus in the form of a coupon rate reduction if the sustainability targets set at the time of the bond issue are met. To help finance these investments, Vittoria Group and UniCredit have decided to issue an ESG-related Bond with ambitious Environment, Social, and Governance goals to reduce CO2eq emissions, work-related incidents, and promote workforce diversity in the coming years.

Vittoria has ambitious growth and investment plans to continue to supply the most advanced and sustainable bicycle tyres on the planet to cyclists of all types. Two projects that will demonstrate the group's leadership have recently been launched: a new factory near Bangkok in Thailand and the Vittoria Park near Milan in Italy.

The new factory, which will open in early 2023 as part of the group's Lion Tyres Thailand (LTT) industrial footprint, will help double the installed capacity for bicycle tyres over the next few years. The new structure was designed and built in accordance with strict ESG guidelines, and it will be carbon neutral thanks to the use of sustainable materials, innovative electrified processes, renewable energy, and solar panels.

Vittoria Park, currently under construction around the group's headquarters in Brembate, will be the world's first all-discipline cycling experience and innovation center for bicycle tyre development. The 5-hectare area includes over 4 kilometers of different cycling trails, various skill areas, and the multifunctional Vittoria House, where cyclists can meet. The Vittoria Park will also house the new Bicycle Tyre Innovation Center, which will house high-tech testing facilities that will, for the first time in the world, combine internal and external testing. It will boost research and development of increasingly sustainable and recyclable products.

"We are very pleased with the development of Vittoria Group and the opportunity that this Bond with UniCredit has provided us,"

says Paolo Gambarini, Co-Founder and CEO of WISE Equity.

"In Vittoria, we are serious about our ESG initiatives, and we are thus very pleased that the market supports us with competitive financing of these,"

says Stijn Vriends, President and CEO of Vittoria Group.

According to Marco Bortoletti, UniCredit's Lombardy Regional Manager:

"We are delighted to support sustainability projects and to strengthen our relationship with an international and innovative partner like Vittoria, with whom we have a long history. We mobilize significant resources in favor of Italian and Lombardy SMEs through the minibond instrument, a segment in which UniCredit is a leader in Italy, encouraging and facilitating the transition of our entrepreneurial system to alternative forms of investment financing. The figures in Lombardy are completely satisfactory, as evidenced by the approximately EUR 130 million in total volumes underlying the issuances of this capital market instrument by 24 Lombardy companies ".

Source: UniCredit news