Union Bank of the Philippines (UnionBank) raised P18.168 billion through the dual tranche offering of peso-denominated fixed-rate bonds amid strong demand from investors.
The issuance was UnionBank’s largest from its P50-billion bonds program. Strong demand from both retail and institutional investors enabled it to upsize the issuance to over nine times its initial minimum offer size of P2 billion for the two tranches.
“Fuelled by our passion to address the needs of our customers, we introduced the bond exchange program to provide a reinvestment option for existing investors,” Johnson Sia, treasurer and head of UnionBank’s global markets, said in a statement.
“We are grateful for the support of our investors as their confidence in the bank allowed us to raise our largest peso bond issuance to date,” Sia said.
The 1.5-year Series F Bonds due 2025 raised P10.3385 billion and carries an interest rate of 6.5625 percent per annum, while the 3 year Series G Bonds due 2026 raised P7.8295 billion and carries an interest rate of 6.6800 percent per annum.
Concurrent with the issuance of the new bonds, UnionBank also implemented the country’s first public non-sovereign bond exchange which extended to the holders of its P8.115 billion 2.750 percent fixed-rate Series C Bonds due Dec. 9, 2023 the option to sell to UnionBank such exchangeable bonds in exchange for subscription to any of the new bonds.
The bond exchange settlement date is scheduled Dec. 4, 2023, with P236.7 million of exchangeable bonds to be exchanged with the new bonds. The new bonds will be issued and listed on the Philippine Dealing & Exchange Corp. on Dec. 5, 2023.
ING Bank N.V., Manila branch and Standard Chartered Bank are the joint lead arrangers and bookrunners for the new bonds. They are also the selling agents for the offering of the new bonds together with UnionBank.