Kommunalbanken is the Norwegian Government's AAA-rated local government funding agency.
Earlier this week a small announcement appeared that Citi, SEB, Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley had been mandated to underwrite a debut public US Dollar green bond.
We've heard target issuance is $500 million. We're expecting the bond to come out next week.
FMO yesterday issued a EUR500m, 5 year, “sustainability bond”. FMO's credit rating- and the bonds - is AAA (negative outlook) from S&P. The coupon (interest rate) was 15 basis points above "mid-swaps".
FMO is the EUR6.3 billion Bilateral Development Bank of the Netherlands. It’s an interesting beast, 51% owned by the Dutch Government, with the rest owned by the big three Dutch banks and a small slice by trade unions, employer associations and motley others.
Lead managers were Rabobank (an FMO shareholder), Credit Agricole CIB and JP Morgan.
According to Reuters. the IFC is today pricing their second $1 billion green bond. Coupon is 0.625% (4 basis points over US Treasury bonds).
Lead managers are SEB, Credit Agricole CIB, Citi and Bank of America Merrill Lynch.
This is the proposal prepared by Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Citigroup. It was first published in EuroWeek's recent Special Report on Sustainable and Responsible Capital Markets.
Framework for Green Bonds
Earlier this month CitiBank and Bank of America Merrill Lynch (BoAML) launched, via a special EuroWeek report on 'sustainable' capital markets, a "Framework for Green Bonds". This is potentially a big development.
Ontario Premier, Kathleen Wynne is right now speaking at the Willowbrook (metro rail) Maintenance Facility in Toronto, announcing that Ontario will be the first provincial government in Canada to issue green bonds. The bonds will be to finance “environmentally-friendly” infrastructure projects across Ontario - transit projects in the first instance, hence the metro rail location.
She is also saying that Ontario’s green bonds would “meet international certification and disclosure standards”.
We’re holding the final of our Bonds and Climate Change 2013 report webinars tomorrow @ 10am New York, 3pm London, 4pm Frankfurt, 10pm Beijing. If you've missed out so far, quickly RSVP to bridget.boulle@climatebonds.net. She will send you the log-in details.
This China banking regulator stuff is getting exciting.
Under China's Green Credit Banking Guidelines (see last night's blog) banks are meant to a make sure that environmental assessments have been done for all company lending and that projects financed by loans remain in compliance with environmental laws. According to the Annual Report of Green Credit in China, only a small percentage of banks are so far reporting on this and the various other related regulator guidelines around green finance.
Spanish waste management company Befesa Medio Ambiente SA is the global leader in recycling steel dust into zinc and also the global leader in aluminium recycling. We count corporate bonds from companies like Befesa as part of our bonds and climate change universe when they come from companies 100% devoted to "circular economy" activities that lead to lower lifecycle energy and GHG usage (e.g. recycling aluminium uses a LOT less energy than making it).
