Investors including Sweden’s Fjarde AP-fonden (AP4) and Andra AP-fonden (AP2), French asset manager Mirova and the Netherlands’ APG and development bank FMO have bought the Nordic Investment Bank’s latest environmental bond.
Also among the buyers were Actiam, the €52bn asset manager formerly known as SNS Asset Management, Sweden’s Alecta and Finland’s Local Tapiola Asset Management.
The bank – owned by eight member countries in the Nordic region – came to market on Friday with an eight-year €500 million bond to finance new projects to help tackle climate change and benefit the environment. The order book reached more than €750 million, and was eventually allocated to more than 40 investors.
“Since the supply of green bonds from the supranational sector was not abundant in recent weeks, a good window for issuance was available for us,” said Jens Hellerup, head of funding and investor relations at NIB.Most investors had a sustainable mandate, or a formal commitment to the asset class, he added.
NIB first issued a green bond in 2011, and has returned to market annually since. Earlier this year, the bank pledged to double its rate of issuance over the next two years. This is its second deal of 2016, having already sold SEK1 billion of notes under the programme in January.
The issue is listed on the London Stock Exchange and the lead arrangers were Crédit Agricole CIB, Goldman Sachs International and SEB.
Unusually, NIB’s environmental bonds framework supports wider environmental efforts, rather than just climate change adaptation and mitigation. Eligible sectors include renewables, energy efficiency, green housing and transport, and water and waste management. The framework has a second-party opinion from Cicero. Link
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