P.M. BRIEFING : World Bank’s 2nd Global Bond

The World Bank launched a $1.5-billion global bond today to raise more funds to channel to the world’s poorer nations.

It was the second time that the World Bank had chosen to raise funds in this way. In October last year it issued another $1.5 billion of global bonds, the first of their kind.

What makes global bonds unique is that they can be bought and sold by bond dealers in Asia, Europe and the United States.

Traditional bond issues are generally traded within just one of the regions because of the different settlement systems which operate throughout the world.

When the first issue was launched the World Bank said the bond combined “for the first time in a single, globally distributed issue, existing features of the U.S. domestic and the Eurodollar markets that investors and dealers find appealing.”