Metrobank raises $1 billion on international debt market

Metrobank [MBT 62.00 ?1.5%] [link] revealed that it was able to sell twice the amount in medium-term notes on the international debt capital markets than it intended. MBT set out to raise $500 million through the sale of 5-year and 10-year US Dollar-denominated notes, but thanks to heavy interest, its “order book was more than 11 times oversubscribed”. MBT accepted an additional $500 million in debt sales out of the subscription applications to bring its total raised to $1 billion. Buyers applied to purchase up to $5.6 billion in debt from MBT on the terms offered. 86% of the investors are from the Asia Pacific region, and 14% are from Europe, Middle East, and Africa. MBT said that the proceeds of the issuance would “diversify the bank’s funding sources”, but also “establish a benchmark for Philippine bank credit in the international capital markets.”

MB BOTTOM-LINE: You know a company is hyped up about what it’s done when it gives a two-page press release with seven bullet points about the sale of some notes. Normally, this kind of transaction is documented more clinically with little attempt made to frame it as anything beyond what it is, but here, MBT is clearly proud of this transaction. And with good reason: the notes were rated “at par with the Republic of the Philippines sovereign debt”; the 10-year note is the “longest senior dated note by a private sector bank in the Philippines”; and the issuance is the “largest non-sovereign note issuance in the Philippines. MBT’s executive team will be riding this high (and the high that came from its great FY23 results) for a while.