Clifford Chance advises banking syndicate on RWE’s US$2 billion green bond

Global law firm Clifford Chance has advised an international banking syndicate on the recent bond issuance in the US of RWE AG as to matters of US securities laws, New York law and German law.

In the Rule 144A US offering, RWE successfully placed its green US$ bond with a total volume of US$2billion. The bond was issued in two tranches of US$1billion with 10-year tenor and US$1 billion with 30-year tenor, respectively. This is RWE’s second green bond placement outside Europe.

The Clifford Chance team advised a syndicate of banks comprising Barclays Capital Inc., BNP Paribas Securities Corp., Intesa Sanpaolo IMI Securities Corp., J.P. Morgan Securities LLC, Mizuho Securities USA LLC, Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC and MUFG Securities Americas Inc.

The proceeds of the bonds will be used to finance or refinance eligible green projects in accordance with RWE AG’s Green Financing Framework, which covers investments in renewable energy generation and storage as well as hydrogen production and storage.

The cross-jurisdictional Clifford Chance team was led by capital markets partner George Hacket (Frankfurt). The core team comprised counsel Andrei Manea, senior associates Gordana Golubic-Huertas and Maks Mencin as well as transaction lawyer Valeria Umanet (all Global Financial Markets, Frankfurt). Furthermore, partner Cristina Freudenberger and transaction lawyer Felicitas Fischer (both Global Financial Markets, Frankfurt) advised on German law aspects of the offering. Advice was also provided on US tax matters by partner Avrohom Gelber and associate Milica Pavlovic (both Tax, New York).