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ASB Bank priced a new NZ$525 million (US$478.66 million) five-year dual-tranche senior unsecured fixed and floating rate notes issue on July 16 2013. The self-led transaction was upsized from a minimum volume of NZ$200 million.
Deal flow in Australia and New Zealand resumed during the second week in July, with three transactions pricing. Most notably, Westpac New Zealand reopened the New Zealand domestic market with an upsized three-year floating rate note – the first public bond issue in the market since June 7 and the first public issue by a big four bank since late-March.
ASB Bank (AA-/Aa3/AA-) launched its debut 2013 offering in the New Zealand domestic market on July 11, hard on the heels of Westpac New Zealand's three-year floating rate note (FRN) which priced at 75 basis points over bank bills on July 9. The new self-led transaction for ASB Bank is divided between fixed- and floating-rate pieces, with the borrower venturing further out the curve than its domestic peer – indicative pricing for the five-year transaction is at 110-115 basis points over swap.
Following the May 30 announcement that it is modifying the terms of its Capital Bonds, on July 10 Genesis Energy (Genesis) confirmed the new the interest rate and margin. Until the first reset date – now July 15 2018 – the interest rate will be 6.19 per cent, having been offered at the higher of 5.8 per cent per year 215 basis points over five-year swap.
Westpac New Zealand (Westpac) (AA-/Aa3/AA-) reopened the New Zealand domestic market on July 9, ending a month-long hiatus in new public issuance. With final interest topping NZ$500 million, Westpac was able to upsize the three-year floating rate note (FRN) to a final NZ$385 million (US$300.4 million) from an initial NZ$200 million minimum size.
Preliminary ratings have been assigned to a new asset-backed securities (ABS) issue from CNH Capital. The transaction, CNH Capital Australia Receivables Trust Series 2013-1, is backed by a pool of agricultural and construction equipment loans and has indicative volume of A$400 million (US$367.1 million) across its five tranches.
ANZ Banking Group (ANZ) set the margin on its new tier one transaction in the domestic retail market on July 9, at the same time disclosing that bookbuild volume was increased to A$1 billion (US$917.9 million) from an indicative A$750 million. The deal, ANZ Capital Notes, is ANZ's first retail transaction since it placed A$1.5 billion of lower tier two notes in March last year and its first tier one issue since the sale of A$1.3 billion, also in Australian retail format, in September 2011.
A gap of over a month since the last domestic deal in New Zealand ended following the July 9 pricing of a three-year floating-rate note (FRN) offer by Westpac New Zealand (Westpac) (AA-/Aa3/AA-). The self-led transaction was upsized to NZ$385 million (US$300.4 million) from minimum volume of NZ$200 million at launch a day earlier.
Deal activity in Australia and New Zealand remains at a standstill for the close of the first week in July. In the ratings world, new issuance criteria put in place by Standard & Poor's saw rating and outlook affirmation for a sweep of small and mid-sized health, life and non-life insurers.
Westpac Institutional Bank (Westpac) closed the first half of 2013 at the top of KangaNews's intermediary league tables for all Australian dollar vanilla bond issuance, which include credit, all Kangaroo, and syndicated sovereign and semi-government issuance. The bank's performance is not reliant on self-led volume: Westpac remains top of the table even when self-led deals are excluded.