BANK of the Philippine Islands (BPI) is looking to raise at least $300 million from an offering of dollar-denominated bonds.
The bank has tapped BPI Capital Corp., as sole global coordinator, along with joint bookrunners BofA Securities, Inc., The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corp. Ltd., JPMorgan Chase & Co., and UBS AG to arrange a series of fixed income investor meetings starting Wednesday for a potential bond issuance, it said in a disclosure to the stock exchange.
“A US dollar-denominated benchmark-sized Regulation S offering of five-year fixed rate and/or floating rate and/or 10-year fixed rate senior notes may follow, subject to market conditions,” BPI said.
The bonds will be issued out of BPI’s $3-billion medium-term note program, it said.
“With regard to the size, we can only say it will be at least benchmark size (at least $300 million),” BPI Treasurer and Global Markets head Dino R. Gasmen said in a Viber message.
BPI tapped SyCip Salazar Hernandez & Gatmaitan as its legal adviser as to Philippine law, while the joint bookrunners’ counsel is Romulo Mabanta Buenaventura Sayoc & de los Angeles.
Meanwhile, Milbank (Hong Kong) LLP is the legal adviser of the joint bookrunners for English law.
S&P Global Ratings on Wednesday assigned a “BBB+” long-term issue rating to the proposed bond offer.
“We equalize the rating on the notes with the issuer credit rating on Bank of the Philippine Islands (BBB+/Stable/A-2). This reflects our expectation that these notes will always rank equally with other senior unsecured obligations of the Philippines-based bank. The notes will constitute the bank’s direct, unconditional, unsecured, and unsubordinated obligations,” S&P said in a statement.
BPI last issued dollar bonds in March 2024, which marked its return to the offshore market after five years. The bank raised $400 million from its offer of senior unsecured five-year notes, higher than the initial $300-million offer as tenders reached $1.3 billion.
The Regulation S bonds, which were issued out of BPI’s medium-term note program, were listed on the Singapore Exchange Securities Trading Ltd. on March 26, 2024. The notes were priced at 5.25%, with proceeds from the issue set to be used to refinance the bank’s maturing debt and for general corporate purposes.
BPI’s attributable net income rose by 20.04% to a record P62.05 billion last year from P51.69 billion in 2023.
The bank’s shares rose by P2.60 or 1.97% to close at P134.80 apiece on Wednesday. — Aaron Michael C. Sy