Tideway becomes largest corporate issuer of Green Bonds in sterling

Tideway, the company building London’s super sewer, has become the largest corporate issuer of Green Bonds in sterling after it priced a CPI-linked Green Bond with asset manager M&G Investments.

The £200 million private placement builds on the success of Tideway’s first UK public green bond issued last week, with both transactions combined totalling £450 million. Tideway is also the largest corporate issuer of CPI-linked bonds with a total amount of £275m.

The placement forms part of the financing for the construction of the Thames Tideway Tunnel, a 25km sewer tunnel that will help tackle sewage pollution in the River Thames.

Mark Corben, Tideway’s Chief Financial Officer, said: “This transaction follows our first UK public bond last week and demonstrates that there is strong interest in the market for Tideway. The £450m of long term debt raised between both transactions further increases Tideway’s liquidity and demonstrates the strong demand amongst investors in the green financing market in the UK.”

Last week Tideway published its Green Bond Framework, which sets out how Tideway will use the proceeds of Green Bonds for the construction of the tunnel as well as the governance for and reporting of the use of proceeds going forward. Tideway’s Green Bond Framework is aligned with the four core components of the International Capital Markets Association (ICMA) Green Bond Principles.

Following publication of Tideway’s Green Bond Framework, S&P published its Green Evaluation of Tideway’s funding platform, which applies to all bond series under the programme. S&P assigned an overall evaluation score of 95 out of 100, their joint highest global score to date.

Lloyds Bank acted as the active book runner on the issue