Finance

Record Nordic ESG Bond Sales Mask ‘Worrying’ Concentrations

  • Borrowers raised more than 13 billion euros in first quarter
  • Sizable contribution from Swedish real estate sparks concern
Private balconies sit outside residential apartments in a housing block in the Kungsholmen district of Stockholm, Sweden, on Wednesday, June 28, 2017. Just as Sweden’s biggest mortgage banks start raising interest rates, the country’s state-backed home-loan provider says it’s cutting customers’ borrowing costs in a move that threatens to hurt industry profits after years of negative rates.Photographer: Mikael Sjoberg/Bloomberg
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Investors in the Nordic region are increasingly having to sacrifice diversification if they want to buy into a sustainable debt boom.

Sweden’s real-estate industry is behind roughly half the country’s traded debt, much of which is issued under a climate-friendly label.