Smorgasbord of debt for strongly liquid retail investors
Lead managers on retail offerings in the Australian market in the past two months say all three deals have received strong support from retail investors, who they say are ready to look at income-generating assets offering good margins and a high yield. Investors have been offered five-year senior bonds of Tabcorp (BBB+), 10NC5 lower tier two (LT2) paper from AMP Group (AMP) (A/A2) and the mandatory convertible hybrid securities sold by Westpac Banking Corporation (Westpac) (AA/Aa1/AA-).CommBank surprises with jumbo domestic non-guaranteed trade
In a sign that domestic investors are gaining in confidence, Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CommBank) (AA/Aa1/AA) today launched its third non-guaranteed trade since the government guarantee was introduced last year. Pricing took place just 3.5 hours later and the total volume of the three-year bonds exceeded expectations - A$1.2 billion (US$859 million) was priced in fixed and floating rate notes (FRNs) at mid-swap and bank bill swap rate (BBSW) plus 130 basis points. Thirty-five investors participated in the trade.