On May 11, 2022, Industrial Bank (Hong Kong) successfully completed their USD 650 million green bond offering. The proceeds of the offering are intended to be aligned with the China-EU Common Ground Taxonomy (“CGT”). The three-year issuance has a coupon rate of 3.25% and a 5.23 x oversubscription ratio.
The use of the proceeds and the governance process of the green bonds will be carried out under the Industrial Bank’s Green Bond Framework. The proceeds of the bonds will go towards supporting high-quality green projects in “renewable energy”, and “low-carbon and low-emission transportation”. The framework is in line with the International Capital Market Association’s Green Bond Principles, as confirmed by a second-party opinion from Sustanalytics, a leading global ESG rating and analytics firm. Industrial Bank engaged the Hong Kong Quality Assurance Agency to issue a second-party opinion, which confirmed that the intended use of the proceeds and the governance process strictly complied with the CGT and the relevant international standards for green bonds.
As the Chinese counsel for the underwriter, JunHe provided legal services throughout the entire process of the project, including undertaking due diligence, reviewing and revising the transaction documents, and issuing legal opinion regarding Chinese law.
The project was led by partner YU, Yongqiang (YY), and primarily undertaken by SUN, Fengmin.