© Reuters Brussels raises 6,000 million with a 25-year green bond issue
Brussels, March 28 (.).- The European Commission placed 6,000 million euros this Tuesday through an extension of the syndicated issue of a 25-year green bond that registered a demand twelve times higher than the figure finally captured, reported the institution in a statement, in which it celebrates the “strong interest” of investors.
The funds raised through this green bond, which matures on February 4, 2048, will be used to finance sustainable projects in Member States under the post-pandemic recovery fund.
The issue resulted in a coupon of 2.625% and a secondary market yield of 3.348%, which is 68 basis points above mid-swap and carries a 98.8 point premium over the German bond due August 2046 and 13.9 points compared to the French bond maturing in May 2048.
The demand registered in the operation exceeded 73,000 million euros and the lead banks were Bank of America (NYSE:), Deutsche Bank (ETR:), JP Morgan (NYSE:), Nomura y Nordea (ST:).
With this fourth syndicated issue of 2023, Brussels has already raised 39,400 million euros so far this year, almost half of the 80,000 million that it plans to raise in the debt markets in the first half.
Of that target figure, the Community Executive intends to channel the vast majority of the funds (70,000 million) to the Member States within the European recovery plan and the rest to Ukraine within the framework of the new macro-financial assistance program for Kiev.
In addition, this issue brings the funds raised with green bond issues to 42,500 million, with which Brussels has set the goal of covering 30% of the financing needs of the NextGeneration EU program, thus becoming “the largest issuer of bonds greens of the world”.
With the national recovery plans presented so far by the Member States, the expected spending for sustainable projects that can be financed with this type of debt is 187,000 million, but this figure will increase as governments send updates on their strategies to Brussels of reforms and investments during these months.
(More information on the European Union at euroefe.euractiv.es)
