Yahoo Finance Philippines’ First Blue Bond Public Offer May Come Next Month
(Bloomberg) -- Maynilad Water Services Inc. is seeking regulatory approval for what may be the Philippines’ first public offering of blue bonds as the country enforces new rules for projects aimed at tackling water pollution.
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The Philippine company, which provides water and wastewater services to over a dozen cities and towns in metropolitan Manila, has applied to the nation’s Securities and Exchange Commission for registration of its proposed blue bonds offer worth as much as 12 billion pesos ($213 million) with an oversubscription option of up to 3 billion pesos.
The proposal comes months after the SEC introduced new rules, which require the funds raised by blue bonds to be exclusively used to fund projects such as waste water treatment and ocean protection. The guidelines to link the use of proceeds to specific projects follow skepticism among investors globally on greenwashing, where misleading claims about environmental benefits of a project are made. The Philippines is one of the world’s largest contributors to ocean pollution.
The new bonds are proposed to be offered in as many as two series with tenors of 5 years or 10 years or both, Maynilad said in a statement. The offer period is targeted for May 27 to May 31, with listing aimed for June 7. The proceeds will finance sustainable water and waste water management projects.
Maynilad President and CEO Ramoncito Fernandez said the issue will be the first peso-denominated fixed-rate blue bond to be registered with the SEC.
In the Philippines, only BDO Unibank Inc., the nation’s largest lender by assets, has so far issued blue bonds, placed privately in 2022 to the World Bank Group’s International Finance Corp.
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