No listing fee for COVID-19 bonds

The Luxembourg Stock Exchange (LuxSE) today announced that it will waive the listing fee for social and sustainable debt instruments that are issued to address the consequences of the current coronavirus pandemic. Until 30 September 2020, the leading exchange for sustainable securities will refrain from charging a listing fee for social and sustainability bonds that are clearly identified as COVID-19 response bonds in the relevant documentation and eligible for display on the Luxembourg Green Exchange (LGX). With this move, LuxSE calls on exchanges across the world to support financing efforts to fight the pandemic and its overwhelming ramifications.

Luxembourg, 15 April 2020: “By waiving the listing fee, we support issuers that turn to capital markets to raise the funding needed to deal with the enormous impact of the COVID-19 pandemic that has paralysed the world. This is our contribution to the major joint efforts that now are needed to bring countries and markets back on track,” explained Robert Scharfe, CEO of LuxSE.

Devastating consequences

Against a backdrop of a pandemic that has put billions of people under lockdown and pushed the global economy into a recession, governments, development banks, institutions and corporates are struggling to cope with the social and financial consequences of the outbreak. As a consequence, debt instruments dedicated to addressing the ramifications of COVID-19 are starting to emerge. In the past week alone, LGX has welcomed several COVID-19 response bonds from different issuers representing approximately USD 4.3 billion in total. 

“Many issuers have focused mainly on issuing green bonds over the past years, but given the current pandemic, we expect to see a steep increase in social and sustainability bonds in the coming months. Significant funding will be needed to mitigate the impact of COVID-19, and LGX will continue to provide the necessary visibility to the response bonds and their issuers,” commented Julie Becker, Deputy CEO of LuxSE and the Founder of LGX.

Finance as part of the solution

The Luxembourg Stock Exchange established LGX in 2016 as a contribution to the Paris Climate Agreement and the UN Sustainable Development Goals. The objective of LGX is to unlock sustainable finance and help redirect capital flows towards sustainable investment projects. Today, LGX displays more than 680 sustainable finance securities, representing a total value of USD 265 billion, from 120 issuers in 30 countries.

Since its inception, LGX has provided issuers of sustainable finance instruments with visibility, credibility and access to investors at no additional costs. As the reference platform for sustainable securities, LGX provides investors with access to detailed information on each security, free of charge.