HSBC facilitates $500m Bond for BoC

HSBC was Joint Book-runner and Joint Lead Manager on the Bank of Ceylon's debut $500m 144A/Reg S 5-year Bond offering that was concluded in April 2012 followed by a global roadshow covering, Singapore, Hong Kong, UK and the USA. Ahead of the issuance, Bank of Ceylon secured its first international ratings of BB-/B1 (Fitch/Moody's) with HSBC acting as Joint Ratings Adviser.

Chief Executive Officer for HSBC Sri Lanka and the Maldives, Nick Nicolaou, said, "This is a landmark transaction not only for the Bank of Ceylon, but also for the country as it is the first ever USD benchmark bond from a Sri Lankan issuer other than the sovereign. The transaction achieved a very well balanced allocation across the three key geographies and opened up the international markets for other Sri Lankan borrowers." The success of the issue was marked by the robust order book of $3.86b via 215 investors with an oversubscription of 7.7 times the issue size.

Senior Manager, Investment Banking, HSBC, Lakshan Goonetilleke, said, "The Bank of Ceylon minimised the execution risk by adopting an intra-day execution strategy.

Book building began on April 26 during Asia Morning with Bank of Ceylon announcing a new USD 5-year transaction, on the back of strong indicative orders coming from the roadshow."

This is the fifth consecutive USD bond mandate for HSBC from Sri Lanka and becomes the only Bank to have led every Sri Lankan USD benchmark bond issuance.