Maybank's Tokyo bond raises US$305mil

KUALA LUMPUR: Maybank has successfully launched its inaugural Tokyo Pro-Bond Market offering with a three-year tenor, managing to raise 31.1 billion yen (US$305mil).
It marked the first Pro-Bond issue out of Maybank’s US$5bil multi-currency MTN programme, and is rated A3, A-, A- respectively by Moody’s, Standard & Poor’s and Fitch Ratings.
CréditAgricole Corporate and Investment Bank, and Maybank Kim Eng Securities Pte Ltd acted as joint book managers.
“By establishing a Pro-Bond platform, Maybank has successfully secured a new recurring source of medium- to long-term funding,” said Maybank group corporate treasurer, Odie Lee. “We have over recent times opened our funding to private placements, and this new access to the Japanese capital markets fits our diversification strategy.”
Investors responded very positively to this pro-bond offering, said Credit Agricole’s Benjamin Lamberg, global co-head of MTNs & private placements, and Junya Fujisaki, head of syndicate Japan.
The overall transaction only took two weeks from the first interest expressed by investors to completion,” they noted.
Maybank KE Securites’ head of debt capital market, Ka Sing Lee: “This is a milestone transaction for Maybank Kim Eng, and represents our first foray into the Japanese capital markets. We will continue to build on this success and momentum to offer our client access to the Japanese capital markets.”
The Tokyo Pro-Bond Market is a new issue bond market operated by the Tokyo Stock Exchange and involves a concise disclosure requirement compared with a conventional public offering bond in Japan.