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LAGreen and GF Mega join forces to promote sustainability bonds focused on green projects in Mexico

13/07/2022

After a successful bond issuance, representatives of LAGreen and GF Mega agree to strengthen cooperation towards connecting sustainable projects with capital markets.

Frankfurt, July 13, 2022 – The Latin American Green Bond Fund (LAGreen) and Operadora de Servicios Mega (GF Mega) strengthened their commitment to promoting sustainability bonds in Mexico. This follows LAGreen supporting the MXN 3,000 million (ca. USD 150 million) publicly listed sustainable bond issued by Mega in May. The fund subscribed MXN 506 million (ca. USD 26 million) as one if its anchor investors and will provide ongoing technical assistance to support post issuance activities related to the bond.

Through this partnership, LAGreen and GF Mega aim to demonstrate the tangible and measurable outcomes created through green bonds issued in Mexico. As a leading Mexican leasing company, GF Mega has over 15 years of operating experience in providing specialized financial solutions to small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), which are largely underserved by traditional bank institutions. The proceeds of the bond will support projects with a green and/or social impact in Mexico, including – for example – the implementation of protected-agriculture techniques, which considerably improve the efficient and sustainable use of resources like land, water, and energy, while increasing its resilience to climate-change. Other types of project supported by the bond include certified aquaculture, small-scale solar PV projects, water treatment plants for SMEs in the industrial, agriculture and tourism sectors, as well as the financing of equipment for the measurement and control of vehicle emissions in urban centers.

As the first green bond fund dedicated to Latin America, LAGreen works with its partners, such as GF Mega, across the issuance process. The fund supports groundbreaking individual issuers when structuring green bonds, offers financing when the bond is issued and supports the issuer in implementing transparent and robust reporting methodologies.

Accordingly, LAGreen will leverage its Technical Assistance Facility to support GF Mega in the post-issuance phase, in areas like impact assessment, reporting and ongoing capacity building through its training sponsorship program. Through this program, the LAGreen TAF will sponsor high-quality technical trainings and courses to further advance the green and sustainable bonds issuance processes within the organization.

In addition to supporting the individual issuances, LAGreen is working towards a more dynamic and diverse green bond market in Latin America. By teaming up with GF Mega, this issuance marks the first thematic bond by a non-bank financial institution (NBFI) in the region. It also maintains the upward trajectory of the Mexican green bond market in the last years: In 2021, the market had a record number of issuances – 39 thematic bonds for more than USD 9 billion – from a diverse group of issuers from different sectors.

LAGreen Chairperson Johannes Scholl said: “We are honored to partner with GF Mega on this important issuance and beyond. Investing in protected agriculture will empower producers to manage resources more efficiently, reducing energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions, while at the same time contributing to more resilient food-production. Furthermore, this issuance marks a milestone for GF Mega, LAGreen, and the young Mexican sustainability and green bond market, which is experiencing a very vibrant period, contributing to better connections of international capital markets with impactful projects on the ground.”

GF Mega’s Chairman Guillermo Romo said, “After LAGreen acted as an anchor investor of our latest bond issuance, we are pleased to further collaborate with the fund. Sustainable projects in Mexico show an immense amount of promise, as they connect capital markets to green and sustainable businesses in the country. We are very excited to see the results of this synergy and hope that this relationship will be fruitful and, above all, that it will be a long-term relationship to achieve the greatest impact.”

About LA Green
LAGreen is the first green bond fund dedicated to Latin America.
By investing in green bonds and supporting new issuers with technical assistance, LAGreen’s goal is to boost environmental and social benefits across the region and promote the transition to a green economy. In addition, the fund aims to promote high impact standards for green bonds, both in terms of the impact of supported projects, as well as green credentials, reporting, and impact assessment.

As an impact investment fund advised by Finance in Motion, LAGreen was established as an initiative of Germany’s KfW Development Bank, with seed capital provided by the European Union (EU) and the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ).
For more information visit https://lagreen.lu and follow us on LinkedIN.

About Operadora de Servicios Mega
Mega is a leading independent leasing company in the state of Jalisco, Mexico, founded in 2003 by Guillermo Romo Romero under the highest standards of Corporate Governance and the only one regulated within the top 5. Mega’s main activity is to provide financing through lease-purchase and credit facilities, with operations in Mexico and the United States.

The Company serves individuals or companies that have little or difficult access to traditional financial institutions or that are not adequately served, and that need to acquire productive assets that generate economic resources.

Mega is committed to promoting economic development in a sustainable manner by incorporating standards of environmental and social responsibility linked to equity, ecological value, healthy development and economic growth of the Company’s customers, to ensure that their investments are not undermined by adverse impacts, so that the well-being of the current population can be improved without compromising the quality of life of future generations.

Media contact LAGreen
Merle Römer
Manager Marketing & Communications
Phone: +49 (0)69 271 035-171
Email: info@lagreen.lu