Belize Receives Third Award for Bond Restructuring

Beverly Wade

This is the third award received by the Government of Belize for its historic and successful restructuring of the Super Bond through an innovative debt conversion agreement with the Nature Conservancy to reduce debt burden while investing in marine conservation.

Beverly Wade, Director of Blue Bonds

“Earlier this year, Belize had received two other awards for the Blue Bond deal because it’s really second to none and it’s really been looked at too as a best practice for other nations that are ridden with debt, but other nations that are also looking at opportunities to now address some of their climate ambitions, some of the natural resources management issues that they are trying to finance.  And so, when Belize’s deal was signed, it was the second globally, but the single largest one and to date it is still the largest Blue Bond deal that has been successfully negotiated.  But since then, other countries in the region which we are very much proud of is that they’ve looked at what we’ve done and they’ve seen it as a viable option to address some of the real issues that other countries are grappling with.  So you see countries like Barbados that have recently announced their Blue Bond deal, I think that was about  two months ago, and there are now other countries in the Caribbean that are now looking at negotiating their own Blue Bond deal.”

Since 2015, the Bonds and Loans Awards has been recognizing the most innovative and groundbreaking deals from sovereign, corporate and financial institution issuers and borrowers.  The awards have been acclaimed as the world’s leading Pan-Latin America and Caribbean debt event.