Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI) Successfully Priced the US$400 Million 5-Year Reg S Senior Unsecured Notes Offering

For the first time since 2019, the Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI) successfully entered the international capital markets with a public USD bond sale of US$400 million in 5-year Reg S senior unsecured notes (Notes).

The Notes were issued under BPI's US$3 billion Medium Term Notes Programme, with the net proceeds going toward refinancing and general company purposes.

The five-year notes were priced at U.S. Treasury gap of T+105 basis points (bps) with a coupon of 5.25% is the tightest ever spread on a 5-year bond by a non-sovereign Philippine issuer, adding to BPI's long list of accomplishments.

Moody's rates the Notes Baa2. The transaction is slated to close on March 26, 2024.

​BPI announced the transaction mandate on Monday, March 18, 2024 and conducted a comprehensive investor marketing exercise involving a global investor call and a series of meetings covering investors across Hong Kong, Singapore, and London. After receiving positive investor feedback, BPI proceeded to launch the transaction bookbuilding on Tuesday, March 19, 2024, with an Initial Pricing Guidance (“IPG”) of T+140 bps area. Orderbooks saw strong momentum throughout the day, despite a week rife with global central bank policy meetings, with the final books standing at over US$1.3 billion, as the Notes were 3.3 times oversubscribed. This allowed 35 bps of pricing compression from IPG to final pricing, even as the issue size was increased from the original indications of US$300 million, to accommodate the strong oversubscription levels.

In terms of geographic distribution, the Notes were allocated 81% to Asia and 19% to EMEA / Offshore US accounts. The Notes were allocated to high-quality fixed-income accounts, including 51% to fund managers, 29% to banks, 17% to private banks and financial institutions, and 3% to insurance companies.

BPI Capital was the sole global coordinator, with J.P. Morgan, Mizuho, Standard Chartered Bank, and UBS served as Joint Lead Managers for the transaction.