African Development Bank (AfDB) announced in a release published on December 14, it has successfully launched a $500 million 3-year green bond transaction in London.

The issue which was launched on December 9 priced at mid-swaps plus 14 bps.

Directed towards the financing of climate change mitigation and adaptation projects in Africa in the fields of renewable energy generation, energy efficiency and low carbon transport, AfDB’s new green bonds attracted many investors. Joint banks in the transaction (Barclays, Crédit Agricole CIB and Deutsche Bank) officially opened books at 8 Am in London. Books grew above USD 500 million at 11 AM and were finally closed at 2:30 PM London time, in excess of USD 600 million.

The issue was placed with 32 investors including AP2, BlackRock, Raiffeisen Capital Management and Zürcher Kantonalbank Asset Management.

Distribution for investor type was as follows: Central Banks and Official Institutions took 39%, Asset Managers took 34%, Insurance and Pension Funds got 25% and the remaining 3% went to Bank treasuries.

Geographically, 53% of the bonds went to investors from the Americas, against 24% for Europe, 14% for Asia and 10% for Africa.

AfDB is rated Aaa / AAA/ AAA by Standard & Poor’s, Moody’s and Fitch (All stable).