RIZAL COMMERCIAL Banking Corp. (RCBC) has raised $400 million from its offer of five-year senior unsecured sustainability notes, it said on Thursday, marking the lender’s return to the overseas debt market after over three years.
“The transaction saw strong interest from a wide range of high-quality Asian and European investors, which allowed the bank to tighten final price guidance to 165 bps (basis points) over the five-year Treasury yield,” the Yuchengco-led bank said in a disclosure to the stock exchange.
The lender priced the notes at 5.5% per annum. The notes will mature on Jan. 18, 2024.
The bank’s offering was almost six times oversubscribed with orders reaching $2.3 billion coming from more than 164 accounts, it said.
“The order book was well diversified with 78% allocated to asset managers, 13% to banks, 6% to official institutions, insurance companies, pension funds and 3% to private banks, security firms, brokers,” RCBC added.
Still, the final issue size was below the $500-million plan of the lender.
The bonds, which were issued in denominations of $200,000 and increments of $1,000 thereafter, are rated “Baa3” by Moody’s Investors Service.
RCBC will list the notes on the Singapore Exchange like its outstanding dollar-denominated bonds from two previous issuances.
The notes were issued out of the bank’s $3-billion medium-term note program, with the net proceeds to be used to finance and refinance consumer loans, as well as its own operating activities, in eligible green and social categories in line with the RCBC’s Sustainable Finance Framework.
Sustainalytics confirmed that the lender’s intended use of proceeds from the bonds are aligned with the Green Bond Principles 2018, the Social Bond Principles 2018 and the Sustainability Bond Guidelines 2018, administered by the International Capital Markets Association and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Green Bond Standards, the ASEAN Capital Markets Forum, RCBC noted.
Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Ltd., Citigroup Global Markets Ltd., and SMBC Nikko Securities (Hong Kong) Ltd. were the joint bookrunners for the offering.
So far, RCBC has raised $1.6 billion from the offshore debt market under its current medium-term note program, with its last offering held in August 2020, from which it raised $300 million through Tier 1 securities.
The bank saw its net income decline by 28.35% year on year to P2.81 billion in the third quarter as its interest expenses more than doubled and as non-interest income declined. — AMCS
