Latest News
Westpac Banking Corporation (AA/Aa1) (Westpac) became the last of the Australian big four banks to bring a domestic benchmark transaction under the terms of the local sovereign guarantee on February 26 with the pricing of a A$1.925 billion (US$1.24 billion) five-year fixed and floating rate deal.
On February 20 Macquarie Bank (Macquarie) (A-/A2) priced A$1.1 billion (US$702 million) of February 2014 bonds guaranteed by the Australian government. This is the first public domestic deal from the bank in this format, after a privately-placed A$500 million October 2013 trade issued in December last year.
New South Wales Treasury Corporation (AAA/Aaa) (TCorp) re-entered the foreign currency funding market on February 18, pricing £250 million (US$356.7 million) of 30-year fixed rate bonds. The issuer also filled a February 20 fixed date tender of a further A$100 million (US$64.2 million) of its 2025 maturity capital-indexed bonds.
Appetite for government guaranteed bonds from Australian bank issuers showed no sign of letting up in the past week with domestic and Japanese investor providing the bulk of the US$4.02 billion equivalent raised in total, headlined by benchmark Australian dollar and yen deals from Commonwealth Bank of Australia (AA/Aa1) (CommBank) and ANZ Banking Group (AA/Aa1) (ANZ) respectively.
Commonwealth Bank of Australia (AA/Aa1) (CommBank) successfully priced its combined guaranteed and unguaranteed twin maturity Australian domestic deal on February 12, but the respective size of the two segments demonstrated the extent to which the investor base still favours sovereign-backed paper.