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LOANS AND BORROWINGS
12 Months Ended
Dec. 31, 2020
LOANS AND BORROWINGS  
LOANS AND BORROWINGS

9     LOANS AND BORROWINGS

The Company’s borrowings consisted of the following:

As of December 31,

    

2019

    

2020

Short-term borrowings

 

397,213

 

1,230,756

Current portion of long-term borrowings

 

740,524

 

922,634

Sub-total

 

1,137,737

 

2,153,390

Long-term borrowings, excluding current portion

 

8,028,473

 

10,566,746

Total loans and borrowings

 

9,166,210

 

12,720,136

Short-term borrowings

The Company’s short-term borrowings consisted of the following:

As of December 31,

    

2019

    

2020

Unsecured short-term loans and borrowings

 

80,000

 

221,436

Secured short-term loans and borrowings

 

317,213

 

1,009,320

 

397,213

 

1,230,756

Short-term borrowings were secured by the following assets:

As of December 31,

    

2019

    

2020

Accounts receivable

11,535

76,547

The weighted average interest rates of short-term borrowings outstanding as of December 31, 2019 and 2020 were 5.64% and 4.67% per annum, respectively.

Long-term borrowings

The Company’s long-term borrowings consisted of the following:

As of December 31,

    

2019

    

2020

Unsecured long-term loans and borrowings

 

42,500

 

112,500

Secured long-term loans and borrowings

 

8,726,497

 

11,376,880

 

8,768,997

 

11,489,380

Long-term borrowings were secured by the following assets:

As of December 31,

    

2019

    

2020

Accounts receivable

 

508,847

 

743,031

Property and equipment, net

 

2,493,872

 

2,918,670

Prepaid land use rights, net

 

741,032

 

678,190

Operating lease ROU assets

599,120

 

3,743,751

 

4,939,011

The weighted average interest rates of long-term borrowings as of December 31, 2019 and 2020 were 7.40% and 6.73% per annum, respectively, taking into the consideration of debt issuance costs incurred relating to the facilities.

The outstanding long-term borrowings mature serially from 2021 to 2034. The aggregate maturities of the above long-term borrowings for each for the five years and thereafter subsequent to December 31, 2020 are as follows:

    

Long-term borrowings

Twelve months ending December 31, 

2021

 

922,634

2022

 

1,585,344

2023

2,581,585

2024

 

2,020,680

2025

1,406,764

Thereafter

 

2,972,373

 

11,489,380

The Company entered into secured loan agreements with various financial institutions for project development and working capital purpose with terms ranging from 1 to 15 years.

As of December 31, 2020, the Company had total working capital and project financing credit facilities of RMB23,421,419 from various financial institutions, of which the unused amount was RMB10,505,516. As of December 31, 2020, the Company had drawn down RMB12,915,903, of which RMB1,229,377 (net of debt issuance costs of RMB1,211) was recorded in short-term loans and borrowings and RMB11,489,380 (net of debt issuance costs of RMB195,935) was recorded in long-term loans and borrowings, respectively. Drawdowns from the credit facility are subject to the approval of the banks and are subject to the terms and conditions of each agreement.

More specifically, the terms of these secured loan facility agreements generally include one or more of the following conditions. If any of the below conditions were to be triggered, the Company could be obligated to notify the lender or repay any loans outstanding immediately or on an accelerated repayment schedule:

(i)STT Communications Ltd. ceases to, directly or indirectly, own at least 50.1% of the equity interests of STT GDC Pte. Ltd. (“STT GDC”);
(ii)STT GDC (a) is not or ceases to, directly or indirectly, be the beneficial owner of at least 25% of the issued share capital of GDS Holdings, or (b) does not or ceases to have the power (whether by way of ownership of shares, proxy, contract, agency or otherwise) to cast, or control the casting of, at least 25% of the votes that may be cast at a meeting of the board of directors (or similar governing body) of GDS Holdings, or (c) is not or ceases to be the single largest shareholder of GDS Holdings;
(iii)GDS Holdings and GDS Investment Company are not or cease to be, directly or indirectly, the legal and beneficial owner of 100% of the equity interests of, and have the power (whether by way of ownership of shares, proxy, contract, agency or otherwise) to control, GDS Investment Company (in the case of GDS Holdings), GDS Beijing, Global Data Solutions Co., Ltd. (“GDS Suzhou”), a subsidiary company of GDS Beijing and the relevant borrowing subsidiaries;

(iv)Management HoldCo ceases to, directly or indirectly, own at least 100% of the equity interests of and have the power to control GDS Beijing or GDS Suzhou;
(v)GDS Beijing, GDS Suzhou and the relevant borrowing subsidiaries cease to, directly or indirectly, be the legal and beneficial owner of 100% of the equity interests of, and have the power (whether by way of ownership of shares, proxy, contract, agency or otherwise) to control, their consolidated subsidiaries;
(vi)there are changes in the shareholding structure of a principal operating subsidiary of GDS Holdings, as defined in the relevant loan facility agreement; and
(vii)the IDC license of GDS Beijing, the borrowing subsidiaries, other affiliated entities, or the authorization by GDS Beijing to one such subsidiary to operate the data center business and provide IDC services under the auspices of the IDC license held by GDS Beijing, is cancelled or fail to be renewed on or before the expiry date.

There are certain other events in the loan facility agreements the occurrence of which could obligate GDS Holdings to notify the lender or repay any loans outstanding immediately or on an accelerated repayment schedule,including, among others, if the borrowing subsidiary fails to use the loan in accordance with the use of proceeds as provided in the loan facility agreement, the borrowing subsidiary violates or fails to perform any of its commitments under the loan facility agreement, or if GDS Holdings fails to maintain its shares listed on at least one of the following stock exchanges before the maturity date under the relevant loan facility agreement : (i) Nasdaq; or (ii) The Singapore Exchange Securities Trading Limited; or (iii) The Stock Exchange of Hong Kong Limited; or (iv) any other stock exchange acceptable to the lender. In addition, the terms of these loan agreements include financial covenants that limit certain financial ratios, such as the interest coverage ratio and gross leverage ratio, during the relevant period, as defined in the agreements. The terms of these loan agreements also include cross default provisions which could be triggered if the Company (i) fails to repay any financial indebtedness in an aggregate amount exceeding US$4,500, or,in some cases, RMB50,000, when due or within any originally applicable grace period; (ii) fails to repay any financial indebtedness or perform any of its obligations under any agreement which could have a material adverse effect on its performance of the loan facility agreements; (iii) fails to repay any financial indebtedness raised with any financial institution; or (iv) fails to perform any loan facility agreement with any financial institution which could result in immediate or accelerated repayment of the financial indebtedness or downgrading of the borrowing subsidiary by any credit rating agency administered by the People’s Bank of China (“PBOC”) in accordance with the regulations promulgated by PBOC governing loan market rating standards. As of December 31, 2020, the Company was in compliance with all of the abovementioned covenants.