The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region’s Government Green Bond Programme raised $5.75 billion in green bonds in dollars, euros, and offshore yuan.
According to the HKSAR government, the triple-currency offering is Asia’s largest ESG bond sale.
According to the government, $3 billion was raised in four-dollar tranches over three, five, ten, and thirty years, and ten billion yuan ($1.45 billion) was raised over two and five years. In addition, a further 1.25 billion euro ($1.33 billion) in two- and seven-year tranches were issued.
According to the statement, global investors liked the green bonds and ordered more than $36 billion in them.
It also stated that the offering attracted investors who had previously yet to purchase green bonds from the HKSAR government. Traditional and green investors both continued to purchase bonds from the offering.
Three-year US dollar bonds were sold at Treasuries plus 35 basis points (bps), five-year bonds at plus 70 bps, ten-year bonds at plus 95 bps, and thirty-year bonds at plus 145 bps. As a result, the final price was significantly lower than initially disclosed to investors when the transaction was announced on Wednesday.
In the statement, Financial Secretary Paul Chan Mo-po was quoted as saying, “Despite recent market volatility, we see strong demand from global institutional investors for the HKSAR government’s green bonds.”
“Since our issuance in 2021, we have once again launched a triple-currency issuance this year to demonstrate our commitment to promoting the development of green and sustainable finance in Hong Kong and providing the market with useful benchmarks. We are the first government issuer in Asia to issue green bonds in three currencies concurrently.”
