Green, Social and Sustainability Bond Awards 2019

Overview Winners
By Elena K. Johansson

Lead manager of the year, green bonds - local authority/municipality: social bonds - corporate; and sustainability bonds - corporate: HSBC

HSBC scooped awards as an underwriter in the green, social and sustainability categories.

It was lead manager for the largest municipal green bond deals in 2018. The Province of Ontario issued a CAD1 billion ($750 million) green bond, while the Province of Quebec issued two green bond deals in 2018, each raising CAD500 million.

Farnam Bidgoli, head of sustainable bonds for the EMEA region at HSBC, says: "HSBC helped Quebec and Ontario green bonds reach a wider primary market, with over 85% of overall sales being represented by investors with green mandates or who were UN Principles for Responsible Investment signatories."

Farnam Bidgoli, head of sustainable bonds for the EMEA region, HSBCHSBC also acted as lead manager and structuring advisor for the inaugural green bond issuance from the Region des Pays de la Loire in 2018.

The bank was also joint lead manager and joint sustainability structuring advisor for the first sustainability bond issued by Macquarie University, Australia.

Bidgoli says this deal was more than twice oversubscribed: "The inclusion of both green as well as social projects saw very strong interest from the traditional Australian dollar investor community and a high level of engagement from environmental, social and governance (ESG) focused investors.

"The 10-year bond was eventually priced at the joint-tightest Australian dollar spread ever seen in the sector."

The proceeds of the bonds will finance green buildings, alternative energy and energy efficiency, pollution prevention and control, sustainable water and wastewater management, among others.

HSBC was the biggest underwriter of sustainability bonds in 2018, dealing with issuances worth $2 billion, according to Environmental Finance's database.

Turning to social bonds, HSBC was joint lead manager for Korea's first social bond, a $500 issue by the Industrial Bank of Korea (IBK), and underwrote Indiabulls Housing Finance's INR3.2 billion ($49.52 million) issue.

HSBC was lead manager for various other social bond deals in 2018, from Korea Land and Housing Corporation, Instituto de Credito Oficial, Nederlandse WaterschapsBank (winner of the social bond of the year, SSA award), African Development Bank, Inter-American Development Bank and IFC.