The Asian Development Bank (ADB) returned to the US dollar bond market with the pricing of a $1.25 billion 3-year global benchmark bond issue. The proceeds of the Bank's third global bond issue of the year will form part of the bank's ordinary capital resources and will be used in its non-concessional operations, said ADB statement received here on Wednesday.
The bonds, which carry a coupon rate of 0.50 percent per annum payable semi-annually and a maturity date of 17 August 2015, were priced at 99.666 percent to yield 0.605 percent, or 19.55 basis points over the 0.25 percent US Treasury notes due May 2015. The issue achieved wide primary distribution with about 52 percent of the bonds placed in Asia, 22 percent in Europe, Middle East and Africa, and 26 percent in the Americas.
By investor type, around 63 percent were bought by central banks and official institutions, 20 percent by fund managers, and 17 percent by banks and others. The transaction was lead-managed by Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, HSBC, and Nomura. A syndicate group was also formed consisting of Bank of America Merrill Lynch, BNP Paribas, Citigroup, Daiwa, Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan, Morgan Stanley, RBC Capital Markets, and UBS.
ADB, which carries a AAA credit rating, plans to raise around $14 billion from the capital markets in 2012. In 2011, it raised just over $14 billion from a combination of global benchmark issues, opportunistic issues in a variety of global currencies, and private placements.