Green bonds

The competitive tax-exempt Louisville and Jefferson County Metropolitan Sewer District deal is climate bond certified by Kestrel Verifiers.

The index, which tracks over 2,800 securities, went live Wednesday. While ESG investment considerations have grown around the globe, the muni market is at the beginning stages and there is no universally accepted definition of ESG.

Spreads have been widening, but secondary trading was on the light side and triple-A benchmarks were cut by only a basis point in spots even as U.S. Treasury yields once again rose on the 10- and 30-year.

Seventy-seven percent of respondents to a Bond Buyer survey said there should be universal ESG standards and just over half said ESG is “critical” or “very important." Consensus on how to and who should create such a language is less clear.

While a majority of the industry says ESG matters, a consensus on how to define it for this 50,000-issuer, $4-trillion marketplace is still uncertain.

Public finance bankers predicted that 2022 could be another strong one for muni bond issuance at the Bond Buyer's California Public Finance conference.

Friday’s data suggested inflation remains a problem, as the voices calling for Federal Reserve action increase.

The finance team expects the mixed taxable and tax-exempt deal will attract ESG-minded investors.

The school will sell $600 million of bonds that a third party verifier said meet green standards.

The university heads into the market this week with a mix of tax-exempt, taxable, new money sustainability and refunding bonds