DOHA: Al Khalij Commercial Bank (al khaliji), rated A- by Fitch with stable outlook, has announced the successful pricing of its debut $500m Senior Unsecured Issuance under its newly established $750 Euro Medium Term Note programme. The transaction was issued at 99.575 percent with a coupon of 3.250 percent and a yield of 3.343 percent.
BNP Paribas, HSBC, QNB Capital and Standard Chartered Bank acted as Joint Arrangers and Joint Lead Managers on the transaction.
The benchmark RegS transaction, which effectively re-opened the conventional Financial Institution credit markets in the GCC region, came on the back of an effective marketing strategy which was undertaken by the Bank’s senior management and Joint Lead Managers. The global road show targeted fixed income investor meetings in the key regulation financial centres like London, Singapore, Hong Kong, Dubai and Abu Dhabi.
After the Asia and Middle East road shows were completed, al khaliji came out with initial price guidance of MS +195bps to investors. The order book quickly gained significant momentum. As the meetings in London progressed, the order book grew further and reached $2.5bn, the bank said yesterday.
Despite the competing supply in the market, al khaliji’s transaction gathered significant interest from the fixed income investor community globally as the bank was able to effectively introduce investors to its credit story. The order book ultimately closed at $3.5bn, representing oversubscription, from more than 230 orders. The interest in the transaction came from a high quality and geographically diverse investor base.
More specifically, the transaction was allocated to investors across the Middle East (42 percent), Asia (18 percent), Europe (37 percent) and US Offshore (3 percent). In addition, the types of accounts were also well balanced, with Funds (52 percent), Banks (28 percent), Private Banks (10 percent) and Insurance (10 percent) investors anchoring the orderbook.
Robin McCall, al khaliji’s Group Chief Executive Officer said: “The positive feedback has been overwhelming, as evident by the 7.0x oversubscribed order book and the tighter pricing. It is pleasing to see that the bond was well received by a geographically diverse investor base.”
The Peninsula
