On 16th May, KfW closed its largest ever green bond issue, coming in at €3 billion, with UniCredit acting as bookrunner alongside Bank of America and Crédit Agricole.
Antonio Keglevich, UniCredit’s Head of Sustainability Bond Origination, spoke to GlobalCapital, commenting: “The bookbuilding process was extremely smooth and very orderly. A 3bp tightening in the spread was more than justifiable on the back of a book of more than €8bn.”
The full article can be found here.
Following California’s devastating Camp Fire in late 2018 and PG&E’s resulting filing for bankruptcy some months later, Gabe Grosberg, Senior Director and North America Regulated Utilities Sector Lead at S&P Global Ratings, comments on what could lie ahead for California’s other investment grade-utilities for Utility Dive.
“Pressure on the state’s utilities isn’t over,” warns Grosberg. “In the absence of regulatory change, it’s possible that another electric utility could face trouble during the 2019 wildfire season. And, depending on the magnitude and severity of the repercussions, the boards of other California utilities could file for voluntary bankruptcy before year-end 2019.”
The full article can be found here.
In the coming years, Italy’s gas-dominated power market will transform as wind and solar capacity catches up and coal-fired assets are phased out. This is according to a new report from S&P Global Ratings analysing Italy’s National Energy Strategy, which aims to increase the share of renewable sources to 30% by 2030.
Stefania Belisario, Associate Director of Infrastructure at S&P Global Ratings and primary analyst of the report, says: “The anticipated growth in renewables to 2030 adds downward pressure on wholesale power market prices, but this will be offset by continued coal and nuclear closures in France, Germany, and elsewhere as well as upside in demand from the electrification of transport, and, to a lesser extent, heating.”
Following outreach by Moorgate, the report was covered by Solar Power Management, Energia Oltre and World of Renewables.
S&P Global Ratings has awarded a Green Evaluation score of E2/68 to Minera Los Pelambres’ proposed US$875 million loan – the second highest score available on the Green Evaluation scale of E1-E4 – making Los Pelambres the first mining company globally to receive a Green Evaluation. The loan facility will fund part of the company’s US$1.3 billion copper mine expansion project, based in Chile.
Roughly US$530 million of the US$875 million loan is labelled as a green financing since proceeds will be deployed at the new water desalination plant and the associated pipeline. The plant will bring seawater to the plant in Choapa Valley, instead of competing for fresh water in neighboring municipalities, where water resources are scarce and expensive.
Following outreach from Moorgate, TXF News covered the Green Evaluation.
According to a recent report by S&P Global Ratings, executives and asset managers are in agreement that the rise of environmental, social, and governance (ESG)-based investing will likely accelerate as a younger, more values-oriented crop of investors enter the global markets.
Doug Peterson, S&P Global President and CEO, told attendees of launch event for S&P Global Ratings’ ESG Evaluation tool, “Now more than ever, companies understand and have a much better appreciation of their responsibilities as corporate citizens. We see ESG matters as an essential component of sustainable company performance.”
Following outreach from Moorgate, the report was covered by Aqua Now, Wealth Adviser, SDG Knowledge Hub, and Institutional Asset Manager.
RiskFirst has taken its PFaroe product and expanded it to include an attribution service for asset managers. In an interview with Wealth Adviser, Matthew Bale, Chief Strategy Officer, RiskFirst explains how disparate systems used by different stakeholders can create significant challenges, including with respect to reconciliation.
Bales says: “We are creating one unified platform that can be used by the end client and manager, bringing the asset owner and the fund manager together through technology.”
To read the full article, please click here (please note, subscription to Wealth Adviser required).
Faced with growing compliance pressures, banks are beginning to take serious note of the digital solutions becoming available to help navigate the heightened reg
ulatory environment. In an article for Semana Economica, Mariel Garcia, Country Executive, Peru, LatAm Treasury Services, BNY Mellon, discusses how regtech has the potential to transform existing processes; the steps that the Latin American financial sector could take to best harness its capabilities; and how Peru can get involved.
To read the article – written in Spanish – please click here (please note, subscription to Semana Economica required)
In an interview with Spanish newspaper Cinco Días, Jesús Sáez, Natixis’s head of debt capital markets in Spain and Portugal, confirmed that the political sphere, including the recently held Spanish government elections, will not negatively impact the valuation of investors on sovereign debt.
Speaking to the newspaper about the impact of Spain’s debt on investor interest, Sáez says: “The Spanish debt, at present, is not the focus of concern for investors – they will not penalize it,” adding that there has been some movement among bond issuers back to Spain recently, “perhaps triggered by the desire of some issuers to carry out emissions under Spanish and non-British law because of Brexit.”
The full article can be found here.
ExWorks Capital has signed a deal to provide £7.5 million in pure working capital to events logistics specialist, ES Global Ltd, to support its contracts for the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games.
While the company has various deals in place to finance the £68 million project, ExWorks was able to step in to bridge the gaps between ES Global’s project delivery and payment by its client.
Following outreach by Moorgate, the news was covered by: Business Money, Event Industry News, The Asset, Global Banking and Financing Review, Trade Finance Analytics and World Event News.
Targeted longer-term refinancing operations (TLTROs) remain a more attractive option than refinancing on wholesale markets for Italian banks, even in the case of tighter restrictions being implemented by the European Central Bank, according to simulations carried out by Natixis.
Dirk Schumacher, who leads the European team of macro research at Natixis, commented on the topic in an article by Italian publication Il Sole 24 Ore.
“The concurrent facts, that the amount that will come to maturity and will need to be refinanced is huge and that the cost of funding on the wholesale markets is significantly higher, will end up making the new TLTRO attractive for Italian banks”, confirms Schumacher.
The full article can be found here.