Clifford Chance advises on Lenovo’s landmark inaugural green bond issuance, part of a dual tranche offering and liability management exercise

Leading international law firm Clifford Chance has advised BNP Paribas, Citi, Credit Suisse, DBS, Goldman Sachs, HSBC, JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley as joint global co-ordinators, together with a syndicate of joint lead managers and joint bookrunners [1] on a US$1.25 billion dual tranche Rule 144A/Reg S bond offering for Lenovo Group Limited, and as dealer managers on a capped tender offer for US$750 million of existing 4.75% notes due 2023. The offering included a US$625 million green tranche due 2032.

The offering was Lenovo’s inaugural offering of green bonds under its new Green Finance Framework.

Partner Alan Yeung said, “We are proud to work with some of our leading bank clients and the Lenovo team on this transaction and to work on another landmark transaction in the ESG space. The global markets, including Asia, continue to show strong support for ESG financing, leading to the success of this deal.”

Partner Matt Fairclough added, “We have a market-leading ESG capability here at Clifford Chance, and we were delighted to work on another transaction leveraging on our track record of deals in this space in Asia and more widely.”

The deal was led by partners Matt Fairclough and Alan Yeung, supported by senior associate Jeffery Hung in London and associates Elaine Du and Sammi Liu in Hong Kong.

Clifford Chance has a prominent track record advising on landmark debt capital markets transactions including New World Development’s dual tranche green perpetual bond and social bond, Bank of China (Hong Kong) and HSBC on world’s largest retail green bond issuance by the HKSAR Government and South East Asia’s first public sustainability-linked bond issuance.

[1] Bank of China, Bank of Communications, China Construction Bank (Asia), Mizuho Securities and Santander