“Interest in the event was great and we received good feedback,” says Christopher Flensborg at Capital Markets’ fixed-income unit.
SEB initiated and was the sole arranger when the World Bank in November last year issued its first green bond. In April this year California, the U.S. state, invested 300 million dollars in a follow-up issue of green bonds by the World Bank. Since then, other investors have contributed additional funds to the two bond issues.
As part of its efforts to spread knowledge and market its cooperation with the World Bank and the green bonds, SEB arranged the London event. The seminar, held at SEB’s premises in Scandinavia House, was co-arranged with UK SIF (Social Investment Forum) which is a U.K. organisation working to promote responsible investment and other forms of finance that support sustainable economic development.
Markus Hüwener, president of First Climate, a consultancy firm providing advice on carbon emission reduction, Judith Moore and Heike Reichelt from the World Bank and SEB’s Flensborg talked about the green bonds. The event closed with a panel discussion led by Penny Shepard, president of UK SIF. Wiveca Kiwi from SEB’s London office help out with the practicalities around the event.
"Our intention with the meeting was to spread knowledge about and increase interest for the green bonds. In this case we look beyond SEB’s traditional customer base and therefore cooperation with interest groups such as UK SIF are a good method to broaden the marketing and meet more potential investors," says Flensborg.