CaixaBank issues a new social bond for €1 billion to fund loans to families, self-employed workers and SMEs in Spain

• CaixaBank reopens in 2022 the social bond issuance activity in the euro market with a six-year bond in preferred senior debt format.
• It is the fourth social bond and the eighth linked to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), cementing CaixaBank’s position as a leading European bank in ESG matters.

CaixaBank has resumed its activity of issuing bonds for the wholesale market in 2022, with a new social bond worth €1 billion in the form of preferred senior debt. The aim of the bond is to finance activities and projects that contribute to combating poverty, promote education and welfare as well as economic and social development in the most disadvantaged areas of Spain.

The bond has a maturity of six years, with the option of early redemption in the last year by the issuer, and it has had a demand of over €1.65 billion, tapping the interest of 100 institutional investors. More than 80% of these are recognised as Socially Responsible Investors (SRI), which is the highest share of SRI investors so far this year.

The price of the bond is set at 62 basis points over the mid swap, 18 bp below the starting price indications, and the coupon has been set at 0.625%. This is the lowest price of a sustainability-linked bond issued by a financial issuer in an unsecured format in Southern Europe. It is also the first social issuance in the euro market in 2022 and the first preferred senior issue by a Spanish bank this year.

The banks placing this issue are Bank of America, CaixaBank, Citi, Natixis and UniCredit.

Four social bonds and four green bonds

This is the fourth social bond issued by CaixaBank, the second in preferred senior debt format, and taking into account the already issued four green bonds , it is the eighth bond linked to the Sustainable Development Goals published by the bank in 2019.

With this, CaixaBank continues to consolidate its status as a leading institution in Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) issuances and a benchmark in socially responsible banking. CaixaBank is also the largest issuer of ESG bonds on the euro credit market. Currently, it has approximately €7.6 billion worth of ESG issues outstanding in the market.

CaixaBank published in December its second report on the social portfolio impact on social matters. This portfolio has €4.96 billion allocated to financing social projects, which have helped drive the bank's four priority Sustainable Development Goals. The financial institution was Spain's first bank to issue a social bond in support of the UN SDGs in September 2019, which it followed with the issuance of two additional social bonds in July 2020 (Covid-19 Social Bond) and May 2021. With today's issuance, CaixaBank has placed on the market social bonds for a nominal value of €4 billion.