SNS Bank has increased its already-strong presence in the Euro-MTN market by signing another programme in the name of its parent, SNS Reaal Group. The euro1 billion ($926.91 million) debt issuance programme was signed on January 18 at the same time that it completed its update to its original programme (See last week's MTNWeek). "SNS Reaal Group is a different animal - it's a pure holding company," says Bas Snijders, SNS Bank's director of funding. "The new programme is to facilitate funding at group level." SNS Reaal Group is the parent company of SNS bank, SNS Reaal Verzekeringen and SNS Reaal Invest - the banking, insurance and investment arms of the company. The Group is rated A- by Standard & Poor's and A3 by Moody's, one notch lower than SNS Bank because the assets of the group are no more than the 100% stakes it holds in its subsidiaries. The first trade off the new programme has already been launched: a euro5 million eight-year trade via Credit Suisse First Boston, which is not one of the appointed dealers. The trade is linked to a basket of stock indices. Snijders says that the programme will be used to mainly issue private notes and he hopes to raise between euro250 million to euro300 million in the first quarter of 2001. The arranger is ABN Amro. The dealers are BNP Paribas, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, ING Barings/BBL, Merrill Lynch, Nomura, Rabobank, and Salomon Smith Barney. SNS has also appointed four further dealers for marketing reasons. They are Bayerische Landesbank, Caixa Geral de Depositos, Erste Bank and SNS itself. They make up the informal European Savings Bank Group and are of the same status as the main group.
February 02, 2001
