Unionbank raises ₱18 B from oversubscribed bond offering

Union Bank of the Philippines, a member of the Aboitiz Group, has successfully raised ₱18.17 billion of Peso denominated fixed rate bonds via an oversubscribed dual tranche offering.

In a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange, the bank said this is its largest bond issuance from its ₱50 billion Bonds Program, which received strong demand from both retail and institutional investors.

This enabled the Bank to upsize the issuance to over nine times its initial minimum offer size of ₱2 billion for the two tranches.

The 1.5-year Series F Bonds due 2025 raised a total of ₱10.34 billion and carries an interest rate of 6.5625 percent per annum while the 3-year Series G Bonds due 2026 raised a total of ₱7.8295 billion and carries an interest rate of 6.6800 percent per annum (New Bonds).

Concurrent with the issuance of these New Bonds, Unionbank also implemented the country’s first public non-sovereign bond exchange which extended to the holders of its ₱8.12 billion 2.750 percent Fixed Rate Series C Bonds due Dec. 9, 2023 (the Exchangeable Bonds) the option to sell to Unionbank such Exchangeable Bonds in exchange for subscription to any of the New Bonds (the Bond Exchange).

The Bond Exchange settlement date is on Dec. 4, 2023, with ₱236.7 million of Exchangeable Bonds to be exchanged with the New Bonds. The New Bonds will be issued and listed on the Philippine Dealing & Exchange Corp. on Dec. 5, 2023.

“Fueled by our passion to address the needs of our customers, we introduced the Bond Exchange program to provide a reinvestment option for existing investors,” said Unionbank Treasurer and Head of Global Markets Johnson L. Sia.

He added that, “We are grateful for the support of our investors as their confidence in the Bank allowed us to raise our largest Peso bond issuance to date.”

ING Bank N.V., Manila Branch and Standard Chartered Bank are the Joint Lead Arrangers and Bookrunners for the New Bonds. They are also the Selling Agents for the offering of the New Bonds together with Unionbank.