Successful $ 500 m BOC Bond is landmark says HSBC CEO

HSBC Sri Lanka CEO Nick Nicolaou yesterday described the successful conclusion of $ 500 million Bond issue of Bank of Ceylon as a landmark transaction for the issuer as well as the country.

“This is a landmark transaction not only for Bank of Ceylon, but also for the country as it is the first-ever US$ benchmark bond from a Sri Lankan issuer other than the sovereign. The transaction achieved a very well balanced allocation across the three key geographies and opened up the international markets for other Sri Lankan borrowers,”  Nicolaou said.

HSBC acted as Joint Bookrunner and Joint Lead Manager on Bank of Ceylon’s debut US$ 500 million 144A/Reg S 5-year Bond offering that was successfully concluded in April 2012, followed by a comprehensive global road show covering, Singapore, Hong Kong, UK and the USA.The success of the issue was marked by the robust order book of US$ 3.86 billion via 215 investors with an oversubscription of 7.7 times the issue size.

Ahead of the issuance, Bank of Ceylon secured its first international ratings of BB-/B1 (Fitch/Moody’s) with HSBC acting as Joint Ratings Adviser.

HSBC Senior Manager Investment Banking Lakshan Goonetilleke said: “Bank of Ceylon minimised the execution risk by adopting an intra-day execution strategy. Book building began on Thursday 26 April during the Asia Morning with Bank of Ceylon announcing a new US$ five-year transaction, on the back of strong indicative orders coming from the road show.”

This is the fifth consecutive US$ bond mandate for HSBC from Sri Lanka and becomes the only bank to have led every Sri Lankan US$ benchmark bond issuance.