First Abu Dhabi Bank sells 450 million sterling bonds

First Abu Dhabi Bank (FAB) sold on Wednesday 450 million pounds ($584 million) of three-year sterling-denominated bonds at 98 basis points (bps) over UK gilts, according to an investment note seen by Reuters. The debt sale has garnered around 1.25 billion pounds in demand, the note said.

FAB hired Barclays, First Abu Dhabi Bank, HSBC and Nomura to lead the deal. The bank tightened the spreads after it began marketing the bonds at 115-120 bps over UK gilts earlier on Wednesday. The issuance is under FAB's $15 billion euro medium-term note programme.

It follows a series of debt deals by Gulf banks, despite fund managers seeing the coronavirus outbreak as potentially hindering regional debt issues that were already expected to be slower this year. On Tuesday, Kuwait's Boubyan Bank sold $750 million in five-year sukuk and Saudi Arabia's Riyad Bank announced plans to issue dollar sukuk, while Dubai's largest bank Emirates NBD raised $500 million in bonds on Monday. FAB sold sukuk, or Islamic bonds, worth $500 million last month.

"Emirates NBD and Boubyan have priced record-low yields on their five-year bonds," said Syed Yahya Sultan, head of fixed income strategy at Emirates NBD. "These are levels lower than US Treasuries at the same time last year," he said.