Germany pushes on pricing to highlight green advantage

摘要

GERMANY adopted a striking approach to marketing a 30-year green bond on Tuesday, starting the execution process with guidance already inside its conventional curve as the sovereign sought to demonstrate with as much clarity as possible the relative pricing advantage of green issuance. With pricing on the €6bn deal then tightened further, final terms saw the country capturing a saving of more than €30m over the life of the green security versus its conventional bond with exactly the same maturity and coupon. Germany uses a twin structure strategy for its green bond issuance whereby the maturity and coupon of the green bond are an exact match for an outstanding conventional bond, making pricing comparisons between the two far more transparent. "There's no two ways about it given the green framework they use, the green premium, greenium - or whatever you want to call it -is extremely visible," said Asif Sherani, head of DCM syndicate for EMEA at HSBC, which was a lead manager on the transaction. The spread for the 0% August 2050 green note was set at 2bp through the issuer's conventional bond, tightening by 1bp from guidance.