METROPOLITAN Bank & Trust Co. (Metrobank) successfully concluded its offering of dual-tranche, five-year and 10-year U.S. dollar-denominated notes amid overwhelming demand.
The five-year and 10-year bonds were priced at 110 basis points and 130 basis points above the benchmark U.S. Treasury notes, carrying fixed coupon rates of 5.375 percent and 5.50 percent, respectively.
The final order book was more than 11 times oversubscribed, reaching US$ 5.6 billion from investors globally. Metrobank is the first private bank to issue a long-dated 10-year bond.
Moody’s gave the five- and 10-year bonds an investment grade rating of Baa2, at par with the Republic of the Philippines sovereign dollar debt.
This issuance established several records: the longest senior dated note by a private sector bank in the Philippines, the largest non-sovereign note issuance of $1 billion, and the tightest ever credit spreads on the five-year tranche among non-sovereign Philippine issuers.
By geographical allocation, 86 percent of the investors came from Asia Pacific and 14 percent from Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
By investor type, meanwhile, 73 percent was allocated to fund managers, 14 percent to banks/financial institutions and the remaining 13 percent to insurers, corporations and private banks.
Proceeds of the bond issuance will be used to diversify the bank’s funding sources and establish a benchmark for Philippine bank credit in the international capital markets. / PR