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BONDS

Borrowing costs sink as investor confidence rises

Spain auctioned bonds at lower costs on Thursday with the country's 10-year borrowing costs falling to the lowest level in three years in a further sign of growing investor confidence in the country.

Published: 3 October 2013 17:24 CEST
Borrowing costs sink as investor confidence rises
File photo: Santiago Samaniego

The Spanish Treasury raised €3.51 billion ($4.75 billion) in bonds of five and ten years' maturity, with demand outstripping supply by a ratio of 2.2 to one.

It raised €1.18 billion of 10-year bonds with the rate of return falling to 4.269 percent from 4.503 percent in the last comparable auction on September 5th and its lowest level for this maturity at a debt sale since September 2010.

The Treasury also raised €1.38 billion in five-year bonds at an average yield of 3.128 percent, down from 3.477 percent at the last similar auction of September 5th, and €955 million in a note maturing in January 2018 at a yield of 2.795 percent, down from 3.001 percent.

The Spanish government had expected to raise €2.5-3.0 billion in the bond auction.

With Thursday's auction Spain has now completed 86.2 percent of its insurance target for 2013, the economy ministry said in a statement.

Borrowing costs for Spain and other nations on the eurozone's periphery have eased since the European Central Bank pledged last year to buy debt of troubled eurozone members if needed.

Spain, the eurozone's fourth-largest economy, is still struggling to overcome the aftermath of a decade-long property bubble that imploded in 2008, destroying millions of jobs and sending debt levels soaring.

The government has said it expects the economy to emerge from a two-year recession in the third quarter and will post growth of 0.7 percent next year.

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CLIMATE

Swedish central bank sells bonds ‘for climate reasons’

Sweden's Riksbank has sold government bonds issued by Canadian and Australian states "for climate reasons", in one of the first cases of a central bank joining the global divestment movement.

Published: 15 November 2019 13:09 CET
Swedish central bank sells bonds 'for climate reasons'
The Bulga Coal complex in New South Wales, Australia. Photo: Glencore
Deputy Governor Martin Flodén revealed on Wednesday that the bank had in April divested itself of bonds issued by the Canadian province of Alberta, and more recently sold bonds issued by the Australian states of Queensland and Western Australia. 
 
“We will not invest in assets issued by issuers with a large climate footprint,” he explained in a speech at Örebro University on Wednesday.  “Australia and Canada are countries that are not known for good climate work. Greenhouse gas emissions per capita are among the highest in the world.” 
 
Flodén said the move followed a decision last year by the bank's executive board to take sustainability into account when making investment decisions. 
 
“We can contribute to the climate work to some extent by giving consideration to sustainability aspects when investing in the foreign exchange reserves,” Flodén said. “We are now doing this by rejecting issuers who have a large climate footprint.” 
 
Alberta's tar sands are some of the most polluting hydrocarbons in the world, while Queensland and Western Australia host some of the world's biggest coal mines. 
 
In a statement emailed to reporters, Christine Myatt, spokeswoman for Alberta Premier Jason Kenney, insisted that Alberta had the “highest environmental standards in the world”.  
 
“If the Swedish central bank is really concerned with making a difference on climate change they need to be investing more in ethical producers such as Alberta which have shown dramatic gains in reducing emissions,” she said. 
 
The City of Örebro was the first Swedish city to commit to pull its funds out of fossil fuels, following the example of cities like San Francisco, Seattle and the Dutch town of Boxte.

 
In his speech, Flodén said he had doubts about taking a more active approach to sustainability, and investing foreign exchange reserves directly “in particularly climate-friendly assets, such as green bonds.” 
 
Sweden's reserves, he explained, are currently invested solely in government bonds, something the bank was reluctant to change.  
 
“This is partly to hold down financial risks, and partly because monetary policy, apart from determining the general interest-rate level, should disturb pricing on the financial markets as little as possible.” 
 
This means that central banks can only have a limited role in pushing the world towards a greener economy, he said. 
 
“This is entirely natural,” he said. “The important decisions on how climate change should be counteracted in Sweden are political and should be taken by the government and the parliament.”
 
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