Australia and New Zealand Bank issues AUD-600m green bond

Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Ltd (ASX:ANZ) has closed an AUD-600-million (USD 462m/EUR 423m) green bond, the biggest certified so far under the Climate Bonds Standard.

About 40% of the proceeds will go to refinance green property, while the other 60% are for wind and solar energy loans in Australia, New Zealand and parts of Asia, the Climate Bonds Initiative (CBI) said Wednesday. The list of projects taking a portion of the proceeds includes the 49.8-MW Miaoli wind farm in Taiwan and the 206-MW Collgar wind power plant in Western Australia.

ANZ’s inaugural green bond deal was in fact 125% oversubscribed. Australian investors bought 92% of the 5-year bond, which has a semi-annual coupon of 3.25%.

The Climate Bonds Standard is a Fair Trade-like labelling scheme for bonds which makes it easy for investors to identify low-carbon and climate-resilient investments.

In 2014, the green bond market tripled to USD 36.6 billion (EUR 33.5bn). According to the CBI, over USD 11 billion of green bonds have been issued in the first four months of 2015.

(AUD 1 = USD 0.770/EUR 0.705)

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