28 March 2024
Today is the annual general meeting of Jefferies Group, one of Whitehaven Coal’s most recent bankers. In the last few years, Jefferies has come up as a new bank of choice for other Australian coal companies in Australia.
We first took note of the up and coming investment bank in 2021 when the bank underwrote a convertible notes offering for New Hope Group.
Next, Jefferies popped up as a banker for Adani Enterprises – the parent company that owns the Carmichael project. It was one of the few non-Indian banks involved in the early 2023 equity raising that was torpedoed by Hindenburg Research’s findings.
Finally, late last year Jefferies, along with Bank of America, provided a $900 million dollar loan to Whitehaven Coal, after other major global banks declined to renew Whitehaven’s revolver loan just months before..
This is the behaviour of a bank that seems happy to prioritise profit over the planet.
Take action!
Send a message to Jefferies and its investors on the company’s social media today:
You can write your own personal (and polite!) message, or copy-paste the messages below, which reference Jefferies’ sustainability claims. Please make sure you tag @Jefferies.
- @Jefferies please rule out any more funding for Whitehaven Coal, and other companies expanding the fossil fuel industry!
- @Jefferies says it cares about being a good corporate citizen, so why would it bank Whitehaven Coal, one of Australia’s biggest climate wreckers?
- If @Jefferies strives to “Always do the right thing”, why lend to companies like Whitehaven Coal with its massive plans to expand coal which are at odds with global climate goals?
- @Jefferies: set a good example for other banks, stop funding dirty coal!
- Please leave the PLANET cleaner than when you found it – @Jefferies end finance for companies expanding climate wrecking coal!
Don’t use social media? Send a message to the Jefferies CEO instead using the action form on this page.
As banks all over the world start cutting off lending to coal miners, Jefferies Group stands out as a clear climate laggard, apparently willing to be the lender of last resort for these polluting companies.
The good news is that many other banks, like NAB, Deutsche Bank and Westpac, have recently walked away from Whitehaven. In December, the company had to turn to the private credit market for further finance, facing much higher interest rates as a result.
With Whitehaven still working out how to pay for a “full scale” Vickery mine and its greenfield Winchester South projects, Whitehaven has indicated it would like to turn to the bond market for finance. And guess which bank arranges bonds for coal miners? That’s right, Jefferies.
Let’s turn up the heat on Jefferies. Let’s end finance for coal expansion for good!