Burgan Bank hires Citi, StanChart for sale of dollar senior bonds By Reuters

DUBAI (Reuters) – Kuwait’s Burgan Bank has hired Citi and Standard Chartered (OTC:) to lead a planned sale of senior U.S. dollar-denominated six-year bonds, a bank document showed on Monday.

Other banks on the deal are Bank ABC, Emirates NBD Capital, First Abu Dhabi Bank, HSBC, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, JPMorgan (NYSE:), Mizuho Securities and NBK Capital.

The unsecured bonds will be of benchmark size, which typically means at least $500 million, and will be non-callable for five years, the document from one of the banks showed.

Earlier this month, Burgan Bank received preliminary approval from Kuwait’s central bank to issue up to $500 million in senior unsecured bonds and last week received approval from the Capital Markets Authority.

The bonds will be issued under Burgan’s Euro Medium Term Note Programme. They are expected to have a fixed coupon rate for five years then a floating rate for the final year to maturity, should the bank not “call” the bonds.

Closing the bond sale will allow Burgan “to reinforce its long-term liquidity and regulatory liquidity ratios,” it has said in an exchange filing.

Sales of senior bonds are relatively rare from the Gulf’s banks, but Burgan’s debt-raising plans follow the country’s biggest lender, National Bank of Kuwait, securing $1 billion this month via six-year senior bonds non-callable for five years.