Sales of stocks and debt decline. Businesses globally raised $4.9tn through new bonds, loans and equity in the first half of 2022, down 25% from the $6.6tn raised in the first half of 2021. The slide in new fundraising was concentrated among lower-rated companies, while high-quality, investment-grade issuance remained more in line with its historical trend.

The price of futures for baseload electricity delivered in France in Q1 of 2023 is over €600/MWh. For years, the baseload price was under €50/MWh. The jump in price is due to fears that the lack of investment in new power stations will mean a shortage during the coming winter. As France used to be an exporter, this affects the prices across Europe.

Article 8 fund is an EU “light green” tag on over 600 funds that “promote” sustainability. It is still unclear what that means. Even EU regulators do not see eye to eye. It is “impossible” to do a meaningful comparison across products. Clients withdrew more than $30 billion from such products. A stricter ESG classification Article 9 funds saw $6 billion of inflows.

Police searched the offices of Deutsche Bank AG and its fund unit DWS Group under the allegation of greenwashing. In the US, SEC is looking into the ESG claims of Goldman Sachs. The rules by which asset managers need to abide are uncomfortably vague and there is a “huge divergence” in how EU's SFDR rulebook is being interpreted.

The term ESG may be coming to the end of its useful life. ESG investing is the fastest-growing segment of the asset management industry. ESG’s critics say some companies are using the loosely defined term to make misleading claims. The term has come to mean all things to all people. On top of that, there is the impact of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

France has raised 4 billion euros. The bond has a 15-year maturity and a yield of -0.415%, harmonised with the European consumer price index. The order book was nearly 7-times oversubscribed at over €27 billion. More than 220 investors participated. Lead managers included Barclays, BNP Paribas, Crédit Agricole CIB, Natixis and Société Générale.

French energy company EDF said that the 3.2 GW project in the UK will cost £25bn-£26bn. It was estimated at £18bn when it received the go-ahead in 2016. The first reactor unit is now scheduled to start operating in June 2027 due to Covid-related delays. EDF and its junior partner, China’s CGN, receive a guaranteed price of £92.50 per MWh.

Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and Denmark plan to build 150 GW of offshore wind capacity in the North Sea to help achieve the EU's climate goals and, eventually, break away from Russian energy. The ambition is also to use the power to make hydrogen and green fuels for heavy industries and transportation that cannot easily be directly electrified.

Ecu has been accepted into the Venture Development programme of R3, which started as an IT development consortium of banks and other companies in the finance sector. R3 has developed the Corda distributed ledger technology, now used by the major European securities exchanges in Zürich, Frankfurt and London for trading digital securities.

The torrent of cash for anything related to cutting carbon emissions mean green bonds will remain a cheaper source of financing. The greenium will hover around 4 to 5 basis points for the rest of the year. Barclays also found no evidence of green-bond outperformance in the recent debt selloff. ESG bond indexes have underperformed broader gauges.

The proposed green bond rules were designed to help facilitate the financing of sustainable investments through the creation of a ‘gold standard’ for how companies and public authorities can use green bonds to raise funds on capital markets, while meeting rigorous sustainability requirements and protecting investors from greenwashing.

Britain will launch a publicly-owned system operator to take over some of the responsibilities of the National Grid. Britain is striving to reach net zero emissions by 2050, a goal that will require a huge increase in renewable electricity. Shares in National Grid were down around 0.7% early on Wednesday, slightly underperforming the wider index.