Robinsons Bank sets P5 B LTNCD offer

Gokongwei-led Robinsons Bank Corp. is raising P5 billion via the issuance of long-term negotiable certificates of deposits (LTNCDs) to fund its asset growth and support its expansion program.

Roel Costuna, senior vice president and corporate secretary of Robinsons Bank, said in a disclosure to the Philippine Dealing & Ex- change Corp. (PDEx) the bank’s board of directors approved the fund raising activity last Feb. 28.

The LTNCDs with a tenor of five years and six months would be issued in one or two tranches within a period of one year. The bank has tapped ING Bank NV as the arranger while the selling agents have yet to be named.

Proceeds of the fund raising activity would partially fund the planned asset growth and meet demands of investors for high yielding securities.

Furthermore, Robinsons Bank would use the additional funds to comply with the liquidity coverage ratio (LCR) management set by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP).

Robinsons Bank of taipan John Gokongwei is the country’s 19th largest commercial bank in terms of assets with P94.41 billion as of end September.

LTNCDs offer higher interest rates but cannot be pre-terminated like regular time deposits.

The debut of Robinsons Bank at the PDEx platform in June last year was met with strong demand prompting the bank to upsize the P3 billion LTNCD offering to P4.18 billion.

The combined level of outstanding securities of the Gokongwei’s flagship JG Summit Group listed on the PDEx platform currently stands at P46.2 billion.

Aside from Robinsons Bank’s P4.18 billion worth of LTNCDs, JG Summit also raised P30 billion from the issuance of fixed rate bonds due 2019, 2021, and 2024 last February 2014 while Robinsons Land Corp. raised P12 billion from the issuance of fixed rate bonds due 2022 and 2024 last February 2015.

Last year, Philippine banks raised P72.91 billion via the issuance of LTNCDs and accounted for more than a third or 35 percent of the record P207.43 billion funds listed at the PDEx platform.

The list was led by Ayalaled Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI) that raised a record P12.24 billion from the issuance of LTNCDs followed by BDO Unibank of retail and banking magnate Henry Sy with P11.8 billion, and Philippine National Bank of tobacco and airline magnate Lucio Tan.