CS SUD: BI DB CONSION O MIN CONSION | 7
Innovation
This transaction is a replicable model for achieving con-
servation and climate outputs and creating sustainable
conservation funding. The transaction was innovative in
several ways:
1. Refinancing of Sovereign Commercial Debt at Scale:
The transaction proved that debt conversions for con-
servation and climate can be accomplished targeting
commercial debt at scale. Previous Debt for Nature
Swaps were mostly small (typically less than USD 50
million) and refinanced bilateral (government-to-gov-
ernment) lending. The Belize debt conversion
refinanced external commercial debt—often the most
expensive and burdensome debt for a country due to
higher interest rates. This product allows countries
to take advantage of discounts available in the capital
market and therefore does not require negotiating
write-os from ocial bilateral creditors. This trans-
action adds another tool to the conservation finance
toolbox.
2. Use of Debt Conversion for Conservation to Assist
Debt Sustainability: The IMF stated that the debt
conversion was one of two key reasons Belize made
“significant progress towards restoring debt sustain-
ability in 2021.”
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While the IMF also stated that Belize’s
debt would remain unsustainable “in the absence of
additional measures”, the debt conversion reduced the
public debt by 12 percent of GDP and helps support the
Belize fiscal strategy, mapped out in its Medium-Term
Recovery Plan, seeking to reduce public debt to 85
percent of GDP in 2025. The conservation flows, which
absent the transaction would have been paid to exter-
nal creditors in USD, will be paid in local currency and
recirculated back into the local economy creating much
needed economic stimulus.
3. Use of Political Risk Insurance: The transaction was
the first structure to utilize the combination of Arbitral
Award Default and Denial of Justice policies from
DFC for environmental protection and conservation
financing.
4. Investor Class Substitution: The DFC credit enhance-
ment facilitated the Aa2 Moody’s credit rating on the
Blue Bonds which allowed Credit Suisse to place the
bonds with institutional investors seeking low risk
assets. The investor market for Aa2 paper, consisting
5 Belize: Sta Concluding Statement of the 2022 Article IV Mission, IMF. February 24, 2022.
6 Belize: Sta Concluding Statement of the 2022 Article IV Mission, IMF. February 24, 2022.
7 University of Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL, 2021). Risk Sharing in the Climate Emergency: Financial regulation for a
resilient, net zero, just transition. https://www.cisl.cam.ac.uk/news/new-report-calls-risk-sharing-be-expanded-urgently-response-climate-emergency
of global insurance companies, pension funds, high-
net-worth individuals, asset managers, is significantly
larger than the (distressed) emerging market bond
market. This larger investor pool has strong demand
for Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) linked
bonds. Moving from distressed high-yield investors
to the Aa2 segment allows for the identification of
investors with the highest ESG appetite to lower the
cost of borrowing, which in turn unlocks more funding
for conservation.
5. New Method of ESG Verification: The involvement
of TNC in multiple aspects of the transaction pro-
vides high-level comfort to Blue Bond investors and
credit enhancers seeking verification of ESG outputs.
Investors require verification that the conservation
promised from Blue Bonds, and similar instruments
such as Green Bonds and Sustainability Linked Bonds,
will be achieved and that the sustainability achieve-
ments will be properly audited and reported. The
involvement of TNC in the project (arranging the debt,
negotiating the conservation commitments, leading the
marine spatial planning, establishing the Conservation
Fund, monitoring and reporting on the conservation
milestone achievements, enforcing any fees on missed
milestones, etc.) for the full 20 years provides a very
high level of comfort that conservation outcomes will
be achieved. Separately, as the structure is based on
existing bondholders’ exit of positions, a mechanism
to acknowledge and certify a seller’s role in an ESG
transaction could increase motivation to participate in
the tender process.
6. Commercial Parametric Insurance: The transaction
introduced the first use of commercial catastrophe
insurance for a sovereign debt issue. Unlike provi-
sions found in some Caribbean sovereign bonds that
allow sovereign borrowers to defer bond payments in
the event of a natural disaster, this policy allows the
government to maintain the original debt repayment
schedule. The parametric insurance directly addresses
the IMF warning that natural disasters present a key
risk to Belize.
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Moreover, the inclusion of the paramet-
ric cover follows recent market guidance to integrate
climate insurance products into sovereign debt issu-
ances to improve financial management.
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