Symbiotics, a Switzerland-based manager of international investments in small business, recently issued a four-year loan of LKR 1.42 billion (USD 7.75 million) to Sri Lanka’s Pan Asia Banking Corporation for on-lending to projects with reduced effects on the environment in sectors such as energy and agriculture. Symbiotics raised the money through an issue of “green” bonds. Of the bond buyers, the one that has been named publicly is Skandinaviska Enskilda Banken (SEB), a financial services group based in Sweden that is active in 18 countries. The bonds were issued under a new unit of Symbiotic’s Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises Bonds platform called the Sustainability, Social and Green Bond Framework.
Pan Asia CEO Nimal Tillekeratne stated the transaction is “an illustration of our commitment to support the sustainability cause in Sri Lanka. With these funds, we will promote indigenous crops that will also support the Sri Lankan government’s initiatives to strengthen sustainable agricultural practices.”
Pan Asia is a licensed commercial bank that was established in 1995 and whose shares are traded on the Colombo Stock Exchange. The institution operates 85 branches in Sri Lanka and reported total assets of LKR 153 billion (USD 816 billion) as of 2019.
Founded in 2004, Symbiotics provides for-profit investment intermediary and business services to investors in and practitioners of micro-, small and medium-sized enterprise development. As of 2019, the company reported a direct investment portfolio of USD 2.3 billion, with its local financing intermediaries funding 1.6 million small businesses and households at “the base of the pyramid” in 77 emerging markets. Symbiotics also operates Syminvest, a microfinance investment information platform.
SEB was founded in 1856 in Stockholm and has since extended its operations to Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia and Lithuania, Norway and the UK. It also has offices in Brazil, China, India, Luxembourg, Poland, Russia, Singapore, the US and Ukraine. As of 2019, SEB has 15,000 employees and total assets of SEK 2.9 trillion (USD 310.5 billion).
By Jessica McLeod, Research Associate
Sources and Additional Resources
Symbiotics press release
https://symbioticsgroup.com/news/press-release-symbiotics-launches-first-usd-7-75-million-green-bond-with-pan-asia-banking-corporation/
Symbiotics homepage
https://symbioticsgroup.com/
Symbiotics Annual Report 2019
https://symbioticsgroup.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Symbiotics-Annual-Report-2019.pdf
Symbiotics Impact Report
https://symbioticsgroup.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Symbiotics_Impact_Promise_Web_02.20.pdf
Symbiotics Sustainability, Social and Green Bond Framework
https://symbioticsgroup.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Sustainability-Social-and-Green-Bond-framework-for-Symbiotics.pdf
PABC homepage
https://www.pabcbank.com/
PABC Annual Report 2019
https://www.pabcbank.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/PABC-Annual-Report-2019.pdf
SEB homepage
https://sebgroup.com/
SEB 2019 Annual Report
https://sebgroup.com/siteassets/investor_relations1/annual_reports/annual_report_2019.pdf
Previous MicroCapital article on Symbiotics
https://www.microcapital.org/microcapital-brief-hayman-capital-borrows-14m-from-agd-bank-blueorchard-finance-maybank-myanmar-symbiotics-for-microfinance-lending-in-myanmar/
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