BOARD AGENDA MEMORANDUM
SUBJECT:
Title
Receive Information and Provide Direction to Staff on Solicitation of Bank Line(s) of Credit with Aggregate Stated Amount Not to Exceed $180 Million.
End
RECOMMENDATION:
Recommendation
A. Receive information regarding bank line(s) of credit solicitation; and
B. Provide staff with direction on the bank(s) with which to proceed with negotiations and execution of line(s) of credit.
Body
SUMMARY:
On June 9, 2020, the Santa Clara Valley Water District's Board of Directors received information related to the proposals submitted by five banks (MUFG Union Bank, JPMorgan Chase, UBS, US Bank, and Bank of America) in response to the Bank Lines of Credit request for proposal published on May 1,2020. The board requested staff to conduct additional research related to the social, environmental, and governance (ESG) policies of each bank and return to the Board with this additional social screening. Specifically, the Board provided staff with the following directions:
1. For the top five financial institutions that submitted proposals for the $180 million (M) bank line(s) of credit, review their social responsibility (corporate practices) policies and return to the Board with information; and
2. For the $20M bank line(s) of credit reserved for small local banks, expand to include the greater bay area (9 counties).
Staff is conducting research related to ESG factors by reviewing information from several sources, including Banktrack's Human Rights Benchmarking Report1, and the Sustainalytics ESG rankings published on Bloomberg2 . Staff has also contacted each of the five banks to request their responses to these benchmarking studies as well as their current corporate social responsibility policies, as well as whether any of the banks would revise their initial responses to pricing, terms and conditions given the Board's discussions on social responsibilities should be reviewed in conjunction with business terms. Finally, staf...
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