Private and public bank names were in demand in US dollar yesterday. All the issuers were single-A and above, as investors continue to be wary of taking credit risk. The mid-term saw the most demand, with only two borrowers selling notes past six years. At the short end HSBC Investment Bank (Netherlands) issued a five-week trade for $20 million. UBS (Jersey) went out to six months with a $20.80 million trade with a single interest payment and a coupon of 5.100%. HSBC Bank USA went out longer with a one-year $4 million trade. In the three-year sector three issuers closed identical trades for $13.28 million. UBS Warburg was the lead manager for the trades issued by Dexia Credit Local de France, Landesbank Rheinland-Pfalz and Landesbank Schleswig-Holstein. All the trades are straight zero coupons and were issued at a discount of 90.246%, 89.645% and 89.657% respectively. They are due to settle on November 2 2001 and will mature on October 29 2004. The same three issuers also issued similar tranches of the deal in Singapore dollar. The investor is thought to be a European fund investment manager that has a fund based in Singapore. Vattenfall Treasury issued a $5 million four-and-a-half-year note, its second US dollar trade this year. The note is due on November 6. And in the six-year sector DePfa-Bank Europe closed a $20 million trade due on November 14. Commonwealth Bank of Australia went out to 11 years with a $10 million trade and Bank Austria did a $10 million plain vanilla trade via Goldman Sachs. It pays a fixed rate of 6% annually and goes out to November 14 2016.
November 02, 2001