Top private lender
ICICI Bank on Tuesday raised yuan 650 million in an offshore Chinese debt market offering, merchant bankers associated with the bond sale said.
The bank raised the money by selling REG S bonds with a three-year tenor and got a final pricing of 4 per cent, Managing Director and head of debt capital markets at Standard Chartered Bank South Asia, Jujhar Singh, said.
India's largest private sector bank was successful in getting the coupon tightened to 4 per cent from the initial guidance of 4.125 per cent. The bond sale received subscriptions of Chinese yuan 1 billion, he added.
The final issue was subscribed by 47 investors across Asia and Europe. Hong Kong contributed for 65 per cent of the money, followed by Taiwan at 20 per cent, Singapore at 10 per cent and European Union at 5 per cent, he said.
Among the investor types, a majority (65 per cent) came from fund houses, while insurance companies accounted for 20 per cent, private banks 10 per cent and state-run lenders 5 per cent, Singh said.
This is the third issue by ICICI Bank and makes it the second domestic lender, after IDBI Bank, to sell bonds to offshore Chinese investors.
After lying low for the past one month or so, domestic corporates are back to the overseas debt market, according to industry experts.
Rating agency S&P had given a BBB- rating to the senior unsecured renminbi notes, which will be listed on the Singapore exchange. The rating reflects the long-term counter- party credit rating on the bank.
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