Following the continued success of their EUR “Climate Awareness Bonds”, EIB has now issued a USD green bond. The US $1bn bond has a maturity of 10 years - they're pushing terms out with this and their EUR 12 year bond - and a 2.5% interest rate.
By rolling out green bonds in different currencies EIB can tap into different pools of investors - a large pool of international investors are looking for USD bonds and US based investors buy USD over EUR green bonds because they don’t want foreign exchange risk. This same idea works for all countries with domestic investors – it’s the reason IFC issued a Peruvian Soles bond earlier this year for a Peruvian insurance investor. Buyers for EIB’s bond were split across the Americas, Asia and EMEA.
Geographic breakdown was:
- EMEA - 23%
- Asia - 22%
- Americas - 55%
Investor types were:
- Central Banks/Off Institutions - 21%
- Banks - 44%
- Fund Managers - 35%
Lead managers were Credit Agricole CIB, JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley.
This bond takes EIB’s total green bond issuance to EUR 7.3bn (US$ 9.2bn).
