Record-breaking Q1: $9bn labelled green bonds issued, new issuers, new currencies and finally an index!

By Bridget Boulle

It’s been another ground breaking quarter for green bonds – the biggest yet with just under USD9bn issued ($8.997bn). It seems our initial estimate of $20bn for the year will be met much sooner than we thought so we’ve revised it to $40bn (there are no rules).

There have been new issuers, new currencies, new underwriters, new areas of issuance and, for the first time, a green bonds index. All good things, here is a summary...

The development banks led the way for the quarter but not by too much: development banks = USD4.9bn while corporates =  USD4.03bn (it may seem quite a big gap but the first corporate bond was only issued in Nov 2013 while the Development bank market has been going since 2007).

Firsts...

• New development bank: Canadian Export Development Bank

Four new corporate issuers: Toyota, Unilever, SCA, TD Bank

Transport sector green securities: Toyota with an ABS linked to electric and hybrid vehicles

New currencies: GBP, CHF

Green Bond Index released by Solactive (a Climate Bonds Partner). It includes mostly labelled issuance as well as some project bonds.

Top 5 issuers for the quarter

• EIB = $2.9bn

Toyota = $1.75bn

World Bank = $1.3bn

Unibail-Rodamco = $1bn

TD Bank = $452m

EIB has continued to prove its worth as the hero development bank by being by far the largest issuer, almost double Toyota. They issued six times (some taps of existing bonds) in 5 currencies – CHF, EUR, ZAR, GBP and SEK.

Demand

Demand has been very strong particularly with new issuers:

• Canadian Export Development Bank: $500m orders on $300m bond in 15 min

Unibail Rodamco: 3.4x oversubscribed

Toyota: upsized from $1.25 to $1.75

Unilever: 3x oversubscribed

SCA: 50% oversubscribed

Tomorrow:  In-depth analysis + the Underwriters League Table