CEB celebrates its first Social Inclusion Bond in Swedish Krona, rings opening bell at Nasdaq Sustainable Bond Market

PARIS - The Council of Europe Development Bank (CEB) today rang the opening bell at Nasdaq Sustainable Bond Market in Stockholm to celebrate the listing of its debut Social Inclusion Bond (SIB) denominated in Swedish Krona (SEK), which also became the largest social bond in the Swedish market.

Today’s bell ringing ceremony was an important opportunity for the CEB to mark this milestone transaction together with the investors, the lead manager bank and the team at Nasdaq Sustainable Bond Market.

On 27 April, the CEB had successfully issued the SEK 650 million five-year SIB on the back of strong investor demand for the Bank’s social mission. In addition to being the largest social bond in the Swedish market, the transaction is also the first such social bond from an SSA issuer, showcasing the growing role of social sustainability in the Swedish capital markets.

As the only multilateral development bank with an exclusively social mandate, the CEB is committed to working towards further development of the social bond market to support social investments across Europe. The Bank has been a pioneer and leader in this market ever since the issuance of its first SIB in April 2017. Its annual social bond issuance has been steadily expanding and represented a record 34 per cent of its 2022 funding programme. 

SEK is now the third SIB currency after issuance in EUR since 2017 and USD since 2020.  The new flexibility in terms of SIB currencies is made possible thanks to CEB’s new portfolio approach for the management of proceeds. According to the SIB framework, proceeds can finance projects in one or several sectors of action: social housing for low-income persons, education and vocational training, health and social care, and support to MSMEs for the creation and preservation of jobs.   

“The new Swedish Krona issue is proof of the leading role of the CEB’s Social Inclusion Bonds in international financial markets, and builds on other achievements such as the issuance of the first Ukrainian-refugee bond. Our SIBs are both a precious instrument for the CEB to deliver on its mission of strengthening social cohesion in Europe and a significant testimony that it is well-placed to do it,” commented CEB Governor Carlo Monticelli. 

“Through this investment in Council of Europe Development Bank’s first SEK denominated social bond we get the opportunity to contribute to Europe’s social sustainability agenda. A contribution that is deemed extra essential in these turbulent times. We value in particular the bond’s intended use of proceeds to ensure access to quality healthcare and education. CEB’s social impact reports are also of great value in the investment process, e.g. number of people benefited from types of financed projects. That level of transparency enables monitoring against one of the SDGs we have prioritized, namely 3 “Good Health and Well-being”, as well as reporting under EU’s Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR). In essence, this issuance mirrors our ambitions linked to sustainable value creation, combining financial returns and sustainable development impacts,” said Kristofer Dreiman, Head of Sustainability at Länsförsäkringar.

“Nasdaq are very happy to welcome the Council of Europe Development Bank (CEB) to the Swedish market and to our Sustainable Bond Market. The social bond market has been sparsely tapped by Swedish issuers and we hope that CEB’s leadership will help spur the development going forward. The transaction highlights the demand for investments in a broader spectrum of sustainable assets than the environmentally themed green bonds,” said Ann-Charlotte Eliasson, Head of European Debt Listings at Nasdaq.