Mehiläinen to tie the interest on its loans to the achievement of its sustainability goals

The importance of businesses’ responsibility efforts has been highlighted for years, and banks and financial institutions are increasingly taking sustainability goals into account as part of their financing solutions. Corporate responsibility is also at the heart of Mehiläinen’s strategy, and the interest margin of this new financing agreement will increase or decrease in accordance with how successful the company is in reaching the three sustainability goals tied to the agreement. Mehiläinen is committed to spending the savings resulting from decreases in the interest margin on environmental and other sustainability investments.

- This loan package along with its sustainability indicators clearly shows that Mehiläinen is committed to the ambitious goals of its sustainability programme. We know our responsibility as part of society and want to act accordingly, says Herkko Soininen, Mehiläinen’s CFO.

The three sustainability goals included in the loan package are:

1. To continuously improve the quality of care services for the elderly. This is measured with the Quality Index, developed by Mehiläinen, which consists of five areas: individual care and support, safety, own cozy home, sense of community and participation, as well as tasty and healthy food.
2. Very quick access to non-urgent care in public primary healthcare services provided by Mehiläinen. The indicator is the third available appointment (T3) within seven working days.
3. To reduce Mehiläinen Group’s carbon dioxide emissions in relation to revenue from the 2020 level every year for the entire Group.

The chosen indicators are directly linked with the focus areas of Mehiläinen’s strategic development efforts.

- In recent years, care services for the elderly have been at the heart of our quality improvement work, and we wanted to spur ourselves on by tying the improvement of quality to our financing. This is one way to communicate our commitment to quality, says Marina Lampinen, Mehiläinen’s Director Of Public Affairs and Corporate Responsibility.

- Access to non-urgent care in primary healthcare has been identified as one of the weak points of the Finnish health and social services system. Being able to access care in a week is an ambitious goal, as no Finnish city is currently achieving it. We hope that, by setting an example, we can also inspire others to start developing their services, says Lampinen.

By committing to reducing carbon dioxide emissions in its operations, Mehiläinen wants to spur on its activities to protect the environment.

- In previous years, we have already done things such as switching to using certified renewable energy and reducing our paper consumption across the entire Group, says Lampinen.

The signed financing agreement consists of a loan totalling EUR 1.06 billion, which replaces Mehiläinen’s current loans and increases Mehiläinen’s cash assets for things such as future acquisitions and other investments. The loan arrangement’s joint global coordinators and physical bookrunners are HSBC and Jefferies and joint bookrunners are Barclays, Credit Agricole CIB, Danske Bank (agent), Nordea, MUFG and SMBC.