• CaixaBank reopens in 2022 the activity of issuing social bonds on the euro market with a six-year bond in the preferred senior debt format.
• This is the fourth social link and the eighth linked to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), consolidating CaixaBank’s position as a leading European bank in terms of ESG.
CaixaBank resumed its bond issuance activity for the wholesale market in 2022, with a new social bond worth €1 billion in the form of senior preferred debt. The objective of the bond is to finance activities and projects that contribute to the fight against poverty, to promote education and well-being as well as economic and social development in the most disadvantaged areas of Spain.
The bond has a maturity of six years, with an option for early redemption within the last year by the issuer, and it has generated demand for more than 1.65 billion euros, attracting interest from 100 institutional investors. More than 80% of them are recognized as Socially Responsible Investors (SRI), which represents the highest share of SRI investors so far this year.
The price of the bond is set at 62 basis points above the mid swap, or 18 bps below the initial price indications, and the coupon has been set at 0.625%. This is the lowest price of a sustainability bond issued by a financial issuer in an unsecured format in Southern Europe. It is also the first social issue in the euro market in 2022 and the first preferred senior issue by a Spanish bank this year.
The banks placing this issue are Bank of America, CaixaBank, Citi, Natixis and UniCredit.
Four social bonds and four green bonds
This is the fourth social bond issued by CaixaBank, the second in preferred senior debt format, and taking into account the four green bonds already issued, it is the eighth bond linked to the sustainable development objectives published by the bank. in 2019.
With this, CaixaBank continues to consolidate its status as a benchmark institution in terms of environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues and benchmark in terms of socially responsible banking. CaixaBank is also the largest issuer of ESG bonds in the euro credit market. Currently, it has approximately €7.6 billion of ESG issues outstanding in the market.
CaixaBank published in December its second report on the impact of the social portfolio on social issues. This portfolio includes 4.96 billion euros allocated to the financing of social projects, which have contributed to the achievement of the four priority sustainable development objectives of the bank. The financial institution was the first Spanish bank to issue a social bond in support of the UN SDGs in September 2019, which it followed with the issuance of two additional social bonds in July 2020 (Covid-19 Social Bond) and in May 2021. With today’s issue, CaixaBank has placed social bonds on the market for a nominal value of 4 billion euros.
