Green Bond Awards 2018

Lead manager of the year - SSA, municipal & local authority: JP Morgan

It has been another busy year for JP Morgan, which was recognised for its influential role in the sub-sovereign, supranational and agency (SSA) market as well as in deals from local authorities and municipalities.

Led by the energetic Marilyn Ceci, JP Morgan's green bond team was "extremely active" in the US muni market, with a string of deals including issues from healthcare provider Kaiser Permanente, New York State Housing Finance Agency, San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District, New York's Metropolitan Transportation Authority, Massachusetts Clean Water Trust, Commonwealth Of Massachusetts, Massachusetts Water Resources Authority, New York City Housing Development Corporation and the State Of Connecticut.

When it comes to SSA issuance, JP Morgan was praised by one judge for helping "maintain the integrity" of the market. Its deals in this market include: French railway body SNCF, France's finance and development body CDC, Swedish local government funding agency Kommuninvest, Export Development Canada, the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, as well as a string of development banks – IFC, FMO, ADB, EIB, IADB and KfW.

It was also one of the leaders in the Mexico City Airport issuance, which at $4 billion was the largest green bond in Latin America in 2017, to fund plans to build a carbon-neutral airport.

Ceci, who was a co-founder of the Green Bond Principles and remains actively involved in the initiative's governance, is upbeat about the market's prospects.

She says she is working on "a tremendous pipeline" of US muni deals, and is not worried about tax changes that remove a tax exemption for the advanced refunding of projects.

"There's nothing that leads me to expect a drop in muni issuance," she says, arguing that municipalities will still need to fund projects, whether or not they are exempt from tax.