KUALA LUMPUR: RHB Bank Bhd has received an overwhelming demand for its US$500 million senior unsecured loan as the offering reached a peak order book over US$2.7 billion a final price guidance on June 22.
The banking group has completed the issuance of US$500 million senior unsecured notes, marking the fourth issuance from its US$5 billion medium-term note programme.
Group managing director and group chief executive officer Datuk Khairussaleh Ramli said the senior notes were ultimately priced at 78 basis points (bps) over the five-year US Treasury yield and will pay a coupon of 1.658 per cent per annum.
He said this represented a flat to minimal new issue premium against RHB Bank's existing secondary yield curve.
"This issuance represents the lowest coupon and tightest spread ever achieved by RHB Bank in the USD bond market, marking an encouraging return to the USD bond market since our US$300 million offerings in February 2019," he said.
The US$5 billion medium-term note programme was established on September 23, 2014, and the senior notes represent the first conventional USD public benchmark issuance by a Malaysian financial institution since 2019.
The senior notes are assigned a rating of A3 by Moody's Investors Service. They are expected to be listed on the Singapore Exchange Securities Trading Ltd and Labuan International Financial Exchange Inc.
By geographical distribution, Asian and European investors were allocated 83 per cent and 17 per cent of the senior notes, respectively.
RHB said in terms of investors' type, banks were allocated 48 per cent of the issue while asset managers and fund managers were allocated 35 per cent.
Sovereign wealth funds, insurance, and pension funds were allocated 16 per cent, with the remaining one per cent being allocated to private banks.
RHB Investment Bank Bhd, BofA Securities and The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Ltd acted are the joint global coordinators, joint lead managers and joint bookrunners for the senior notes issuance.