Ahren Lester

Turkey raises $2.5bn from sovereign green bond debut

Turkey has raised $2.5 billion from its debut green bond, with the transaction more than three times oversubscribed.

Loan round-up: Wellington Airport, Proximar, Morrison & Co ... and more

Bond round-up: CEB, Italy, Pacific Gas and Electric ... and more

Zero-deforestation soy finance initiative ready to 'scale significantly'

A green bond-backed, zero-deforestation soy farming finance initiative is planning to grow to $250 million in 2024 and $1 billion in 2025, after the success of a $11 million pilot in Brazil.

Sustainability Linked Loan Principles update 'de-emphasises' financial incentives

Updates to the Sustainability Linked Loan Principles (SLLP) intentionally weakened language around financial "incentives" as it was believed to place the "wrong emphasis" on the point of the instrument, according to the Loan Market Association (LMA).

SEB, CA-CIB launch blockchain-based digital bond platform

'It's time to stop step-up-only sustainability-linked bonds'

A senior European banker has argued it is time for sustainability-linked bonds to be issued with both step-up and step-down coupons, to deal with the "thorny" topic of investors effectively being rewarded for issuers missing their targets.

Union Investment: SLBs can have impact

The market needs to promote the strongest SLBs rather than just pile-in on the weakest in order to support the development of a potentially valuable instrument, Union Investment's Johannes Böhm tells Ahren Lester.

Solactive launches social, sustainability bond index with CBI

Loan round-up: Produbanco, Salmon Evolution, Mitsui OSK Lines ... and more