The capital market plays a predominant role in the field of sustainable finance. The issuance of instruments such as green bonds or sustainability-linked bonds still represents, in absolute value and relative terms, a small share of total debt issuance. But the interest of issuers and investors has grown very significantly.
In this context, several domestic companies resorted to the capital markets to issue sustainable debt in the ongoing quarter. In particular, we highlight the issuance of green bonds by EDP - Energias de Portugal, S.A. and of sustainability-linked bonds by Mota-Engil, completed in October, and the issuance of green bonds by Greenvolt - Energias Renováveis, S.A., completed this November.
EDP - Energias de Portugal, S.A. was the first Portuguese company to issue a green bond, in 2018, and since then has regularly resorted to issuing this type of debt to qualified investors to raise funds to finance or refinance its portfolio of eligible "Green" projects, as defined in its “Green Finance Framework”.
Mota-Engil, SGPS, S.A. made its debut last year in the issuance of sustainability-linked bonds, an operation awarded the "Finance for the Future" prize by Euronext Lisbon, and the company has now repeated this offer at retail market level. Within the scope of these issuances, Mota-Engil proposes to improve a relevant performance indicator in the context of its activity - reducing the level of non-fatal work accidents with sick leave.
Greenvolt - Energias Renováveis, S.A., which was first listed on the stock exchange last year, having been awarded ex-aequo the "Issuer of the Year" prize by Euronext Lisbon, had already issued green bonds in 2021, directed at qualified investors, and has now approached the retail market with a new green bond issue, which is the first of its kind. With this operation, Greenvolt proposes to raise funds to finance and/or refinance new and/or existing renewable energy and energy efficiency projects.
VdA advised the Joint-Bookrunners in the aforementioned green bond issuances carried out by EDP and Mota-Engil and Greenvolt in their sustainability-linked bonds and green bonds issuances, respectively. The VdA team involved in these operations was coordinated by Pedro Cassiano Santos, Hugo Moredo Santos, and Ana Luís de Sousa and included lawyers from the capital markets, energy and natural resources, and tax law areas, namely Orlando Vogler Guiné, Soraia Ussene, Francisca César Machado, Sara Santos Dias, Sara Fróis Guerra, Maria Gorjão Henriques, Rita Pereira Abreu, Júlio Venâncio, Madalena Cid Gonçalves, Teresa Ferrão, Inês Freire da Veiga, João Ramalho Dias, Maria Beatriz Garcia, Andreia Costa Caeiro and Teresa Prates Fernandes.
Advising on sustainable financing operations is aligned with VdA’s strategic vision. VdA recently organised conferences in Angola and Mozambique on ESG Factors in the context of those countries and concluded, through VdA Academia, its first ESG Executive Training Programme.