Goldman Sachs continues investing in carbon market
Posted on November 12, 2008
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I count three recent investments the investment bank Goldman Sachs has made in the carbon industry over the past year:
December 2007 - invested in APX, a California company that registers carbon offsets.
October 2008 - bought a part of BlueSource, a company focused on the U.S. offsets market. Goldman has said that they plan to market BlueSource offsets to clients.
And this week, we get this announcement: Read more
Carbon ETN follow-up
Posted on November 11, 2008
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This morning after posting the Seeking Alpha carbon ETN entry, I came across this article about ETNs in the Wall Street Journal. For those unfamiliar with ETN’s, or just assume ETN’s are like ETF’s, it is definately worth reading.
When you buy an ETF, you are essentially buying a basket of underlying assets. ETNs however, are debt instruments issued by the underlying investment bank or broker. So if for example you buy company ABC’s commodity ETN, and ABC goes bankrupt, then you become an unsecured creditor of ABC. And unfortunately, more times than not, unsecured creditors end up with just a fraction of their original investment.
What this means then, is that when you buy an ETN you are not only gaining exposure to the commodity, but you are also being exposed to the credit risk of the issuing bank or broker. Read more
Seeking Alpha’s Obama play
Posted on November 11, 2008
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SeekingAlpha thinks Barclay’s Carbon ETN is one way to play the upcoming Obama presidency:
It’s Barclay’s intention to add new carbon-related plans as they are developed, and certainly any plan the U.S. introduces would add to the attractiveness of this ETN as an investment. Shares are thinly traded, but are off 43% from their highs reached this past July.
Read the full article
TerraPass Carbon Management Services launches with 2.5 million credits under management
Posted on November 11, 2008
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Press release:
TerraPass Inc.TM, a leading originator and retailer of carbon credits and carbon offsets, today released its 2009 carbon offset portfolio, including products for purchase through the TerraPass website (www.terrapass.com), and the TerraPass Carbon Balanced Business program (www.terrapass.com/business), and through partners including Expedia® (www.expedia.com), Enterprise Rent-A-Car (www.enterprise.com), National Car Rental (www.nationalcar.com) and Alamo Rent A Car (www.alamo.com). Read more
New FREE daily news links and blog
Posted on November 5, 2008
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So Ive made a few changes. Ive launched a new website, Carbon Trading Daily, that will provide daily news links about the global carbon trading markets along with some brief commentary on my part.
This site will now be more of a traditional blog about Carbon Finance but will also include links a few times a weeks and industry announcements. The twist is that it will wont be about the more general usage of the term “Carbon Finance” but actually about the coming together of the Wall Street finance industry and the global carbon market. Topics here will include carbon exchanges, carbon investments, carbon derivatives and futures, and all the wonderful new products Wall Street will churn out as the carbon markets boom over the next few years.
My Carbon Trading Daily website will be more focused on the traditional carbon finance market, offsets/credits, the global carbon trading markets, etc.
I’ll write more about this later, but Im still working on one more website that should be launched in a couple weeks that I am personally the most excited about. Email me with any comments or suggestions at TrevorCarbon at gmail dot com.
Carbon Trading - Explore Investment Opportunities Across The Carbon Credit Market
Posted on November 3, 2008
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Press release:
The Chicago Climate Exchange, RGGI, Natsource, and Others Explain Their Strategies in Exploring Investment.
New York, NY – Organized by the International Quality & Productivity Center (IQPC), the 3rd Carbon Trading Conference will be held January 26-28, 2009, in New York, NY. This forum for carbon trading specialists provides a vehicle for highlighting the key issues and strategies that are steering the carbon market
Industry-leading companies including the World Bank, Sonnenschein, Nath & Rosenthal LLP, Climate Change Capital, EPCOR Utilities and more will share their insights on carbon trading at the 3rd Carbon Trading conference. This year’s event features: Determining the prospects of national trading schemes with changes in the U.S. and Canada. Read more
Carbon Finance Report changes format!
Posted on November 2, 2008
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Most of the regular readers have probably noticed already that I am no longer providing daily news links, but instead am actually writing typical blog entries. Dont worry, I will continue providing daily news links, but will be doing so on a different site that I will introduce in a couple weeks. I will actually be introducing three new sites in a couple weeks that revolve around the carbon markets. I’ve been busy getting them ready so when I introduce them to everyone I can hit the ground running.
I hope this new format is more interesting, insightful and useful. Please email me at trevor at carbon finance report dot com with any comments or suggestions.
Monetize your carbon credits while retaining potential appreciation
Posted on October 30, 2008
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With today’s credit markets mostly closed, or accessible only at prohibitively high rates, what is a company supposed to do if it needs to raise capital. Well, if you are a company that happens to be sitting on a meaningful amount of CERs/carbon credits, a little financial know-how could be your best friend.
A “sale-buyback” transaction would allow said company to sell its credits to a buyer, while simultaneously agreeing to buy back those same credits at a slightly higher rate sometime in the future. This transaction would provide an immediate source of capital, much like a loan would, while allowing the company to benefit in the potential appreciation of the carbon credits over that time period. What is so beneficial about a transaction like this in today’s environment is that the implied interest rate the company would be paying on the purchase of its futures contract would likely be much lower than any interest rate it could find in todays credit market.
While this bit of financial engineering may be new to the carbon markets, it has been done for years in the equity, fixed-income, and commodities markets. Read more
Goldman Sachs buys into carbon credits market
Posted on October 30, 2008
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The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. (NYSE: GS) has purchased a minority stake in Blue Source LLC, a U.S. developer of carbon credits from greenhouse gas reduction project, according to a release issued yesterday by the two companies.
The size of the equity stake and the purchase price were not disclosed. However, Reuters reported that a source close to the deal said the stake is less than 10%
Through the collaboration, Goldman Sachs will structure and market a broad range of verified emissions reductions (VERs) resulting from greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction projects in Blue Source’s portfolio, including those associated with methane management from coal mining, wastewater treatment, landfills and animal waste; energy efficiency; carbon capture and sequestration from fertilizer and natural gas production; and industrial gas destruction. Read more
ETF Securities To List Europe’s First Carbon ETC
Posted on October 29, 2008
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Let the carbon investing boom begin:
ETF Securities Limited (ETFS), the global pioneer in Exchange Traded Commodities (ETCs), will list the world’s first Carbon ETC on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) in the dedicated ETC segment. ETFS Carbon offers investors, for the first time ever in Europe, the opportunity to gain simple and direct exposure to the carbon emissions allowance futures market. It is expected that the first day of trading will be Thursday 30th October.
ETFS Carbon (LSE Code: CARB) is designed to track the price of carbon emissions allowance futures and offers investors a total return*. CARB tracks the ICE ECX EUA Futures Contract traded in London on the ICE Futures Market - currently the most liquid exchange traded contract within the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (”EU ETS”). Each ETFS Carbon is initially equivalent to one emissions allowance; the holder of an emissions allowance owns the right to emit one tonne of carbon dioxide equivalent gas. On the LSE, ETFS Carbon will trade in both Euros (CARB) and also in British pence (CARP) on the London Stock Exchange. Each ETFS Carbon will begin trading at approximately EUR 18.37 (£14.74). Read more
