Evaluation of attractiveness of Russian and Western European green bonds

More and more companies in Western markets provide potential investors with an instrument to attract debt financing called “green bonds”. In recent years, a significant rise in demand for this type of securities is observed in Western stock markets; Russian investors also demonstrate interest in them, which makes issues of evaluating green bonds and comparing their investment attractiveness with the attractiveness of traditional bonds topical ones. The paper gives the assessment of attractiveness of green bonds both of Russian and Western European issuers and compares green and traditional corporate bonds from the point of view of a potential investor. The authors analyzed key financial performance indicators of green bonds: a coupon size, yield to maturity, and duration; assessed alternative costs of holding green bonds (bank deposit for the period of more than one year is considered an alternative variant of investment). Based on the results of the work, the authors conclude that, in general, non-green bonds today are more attractive for an investor; however, green bonds have an advantage in view of nominal coupon profitability. High duration is a distinctive feature of green bonds: the average due date of return of investments of green bonds is close to the maturity date, while traditional bonds have the duration much less than the term to their maturity. Therefore, one can note the heightened risks of inability to perform green bonds payments. In the Russian Federation, it is possible to partially eliminate specified risks through the government support of green projects.