Global Social Bond Sales Top $14 Billion in Busiest April Ever

(Bloomberg) -- Bonds meant to finance social causes had their busiest April on record, propelled by large deals from French unemployment insurance agency Unedic and the Republic of Colombia.

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Global social bond sales reached $14.3 billion last month, edging out a previous record of $12.2 billion in April 2022, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Unedic issued a €1 billion ($1.08 billion) offering to fund the agency’s efforts to compensate workers and help companies preserve jobs through economic or health crises, according to its framework. It received orders that covered the deal nearly 13 times.

Colombia, meanwhile, tapped the US debt market to raise $1.3 billion in a two-part offering to help fund the nation’s efforts to fight poverty, reduce social inequalities and boost access to health care and education, according to its framework.

Issuance of the bonds skyrocketed at the height of the pandemic and in the wake of protests over the killing of George Floyd in 2020 as governments and companies raised billions of dollars in an effort to help mitigate the situations. In recent years, though, issuers have turned more towards sustainability bonds, a tag that allows borrowers to use the proceeds for both social and green projects.

Read more: The Pandemic Is Boosting Sales of Bonds That Aim to Help Society

New sales of green bonds, the largest category of sustainable debt by amount, hit $45.1 billion last month, making it second-busiest after issuers raised a record $53.5 billion in April 2023. Sustainability sales reached $16.7 billion last month while sustainability-linked bond sales dropped to $2.7 billion, the second slowest April for the subset.

Want tools for performing sustainable fixed income analysis? Check out these data templates for use-of-proceeds and sustainability-linked bonds.

ISSUANCE

• For more on green bond sales, see the weekly story here

• For more ESG coverage, click here

• For analysis, run BI ESG

--With assistance from Jiayu Liu.

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