World Bank
-
The Development Bank of Japan was able to tighten pricing on a €700m October 2025 sustainability bond this week, something not every issuer has found possible in the currency in the past few weeks. Meanwhile, the World Bank tapped an old friend for $200m with a green bond. -
Public sector bond market participants are growing increasingly frustrated at the pace of the implementation of Ester, the alternative euro risk-free rate to replace Euribor. Borrowers are unable to plan for, let alone issue, a bond linked to the benchmark without the rate being published by the European Central Bank. That leaves the euro far behind other markets where Libor is being replaced, writes Burhan Khadbai.
-
The State of California has bought $200m of short dated green bonds from the World Bank, the latest stage in a relationship that stretches back to the issuer’s first dollar green bond in 2009.
-
The Sonia market is developing quickly to become a mainstream product for supranationals, as the transition from sterling Libor into the alternative reference rate takes shape, according to SSA bankers. More Sonia-linked deals are expected from supranationals, potentially as soon as next week.
-
-
World Bank blew the doors off its first bond referenced to the Sonia benchmark on Thursday, setting a new record for non-UK sterling SSA supply in the process.
-
World Bank is set to become the second supranational to issue a floating rate note referencing the Sonia benchmark, after mandating banks on Wednesday. The deal is expected to launch “as soon as Thursday” amid strong demand for the product from bank treasuries, according to one of the leads.
-
-
Public sector borrowers rushed into what is likely to be the last window for dollar issuance for a few weeks, removing some of the price tension they had enjoyed in what had been an undersupplied currency so far this year. That meant pricing correctly involved fine margins — although most deals made it through happily.
-
The World Bank cleared $4bn in the dollar market on Thursday but with spreads very tight, SSA bankers are warning that there is still little margin for error in the currency.
-
More supranational banks will use synthetic securitization and other risk transfer techniques, specialists believe, after the African Development Bank’s trailblazing $1bn deal, revealed this week, writes Jon Hay.
-
Dollar investors gave public sector issuers something to think about on Wednesday, as a pair of SRI bonds had very different receptions. One aggressively priced deal struggled to reach full subscription while another offering some concession grew by a half. World Bank is up next in the currency, though in conventional format, and bankers believe the trade will indicate the market’s direction.
