The latest league tables reveal which bookrunners dominate the burgeoning green bond market. Going forward, China’s lenders are the ones to watch.
Green bonds continued their exponential growth last year, with global issuance hitting $81bn up from $42.2bn in 2015. Bloomberg’s league tables for 2016 reveal that a geographically diverse group of banks are dominating the market.
Bank of America Merrill Lynch (BAML) tops the rankings for the second year. In 2016 it was responsible for $7.508bn in volumes across 38 deals, giving it a market share of 9.686%.
In second place was Crédit Agricole CIB. The French bank was mandated on 32 deals, only six fewer than BAML, but it trails the US bank significantly in terms of volumes. It was responsible for $4.557bn of green bonds, which gave it a market share of 5.879%.
It was followed by JPMorgan which worked on 27 deals with volumes worth $3.963bn, and Sweden’s SEB which created the first green bond for the World Bank in 2008. Last year SEB received 39 mandates worth $3.536bn. HSBC ranked fifth, with 28 deals and volumes of $3.404bn.
Bank of China soared to sixth place, up from 45th the previous year, having worked on 15 deals and $3.228bn in volumes. The banks in seventh, eighth, ninth, 10th and 11th place are also from China, none of which were ranked in 2015.
China’s growing dominance is consistent with the country’s government’s efforts to develop a low-carbon economy. In late 2015 it become the first country to publish green bond guidelines.
