Amount: $500m
Maturity: March 20, 2006
Fixed re-offer price: 99.936
Coupon: three month Libor plus 2.5bp
Spread at re-offer: three month Libor plus 7bp
Launched: Thursday March 6
Joint books: HSBC, UBS Warburg
Bookrunner's comment:
We priced at 7bp over Libor and the all-in was 8bp. This transaction was roadshowed around Asia in the first week, taking in Hong Kong, Shanghai and Singapore, and then Europe.
The books were closed this morning with over $600m in demand and we priced a $500m transaction.
This is an Asian targeted transaction, so while $600m is not a huge number for a firm order book, we still have accounts that are putting their lines in place. We have already done a two year floater with one account that could not take this deal.
This name is so well accepted within Europe that we sold a lot to the UK and Switzerland. Hong Kong took 13% and Singapore took 8%.
That is not massive for an Asian targeted deal, but given the amount of time it takes for a Chinese account to get lines set up it is good.
The bonds are (Thursday) 6.5bp bid and 5.5bp offered, so slightly tighter.
