RCBC Raises US$350 Million 5-Year and 1-Day Senior Unsecured Sustainability Notes

​On January 21, 2025, Rizal Commercial Banking Corporation (RCBC) returned to the U.S. Dollar Debt Markets, successfully pricing a US$350 million 5-year Senior Unsecured Fixed Rate Sustainability Bonds via a drawdown under its US$4,000,000,000 Medium Term Note Program. The Notes, rated Baa3 by Moody's will be issued at 99.279 with a coupon of 5.375% per annum and a maturity date of January 29, 2030. The Notes will be issued under the Sustainable Finance Framework of RCBC.

The Notes, issued with denominations of US$200,000 and increments of US$1,000 thereafter, will settle on January 28, 2025. The Notes will be listed on the Singapore Exchange Securities Trading Limited, similar to the Bank's other two outstanding USD-denominated bonds.

The Bank announced a mandate for a potential USD Sustainability Bond transaction on January 20, 2024, and conducted a series of fixed income investor calls throughout the day. Following one day of collecting investor feedback post the fixed income investor calls, the Bank released terms and initial price guidance for a new 5-year and 1-day bond on January 21, 2025, at a spread of 145 bps over the 5-year U.S. Treasury yield. The transaction saw strong interest from a wide range of high quality Asian and European investors, which allowed the Bank to tighten final price guidance to 115 bps over the 5-year Treasury yield. The Notes eventually priced at a spread of 115 bps over the 5-year U.S. Treasury yield, representing price tightening of 30 bps from initial price guidance. This is the tighest pricing spread achieved among RCBC's USD senior unsecured issuances. Orderbooks saw strong momentum throughout the day, with the final orderbook at over US$1 billion and the Notes ending up 2.9x oversubscribed. The Notes saw orders from more than 77 accounts — clearly reflecting global investors' continued confidence in RCBC and its credit. The orderbook was well diversified with 57% allocated to asset managers, 38% to banks, and 5% to insurance companies and private banks.

The net proceeds from the issue of the Notes will be applied by RCBC to support and finance and/or refinance RCBC's loans to customers or its own operating activities in eligible green and social categories as defined in RCBC's Sustainable Finance Framework. Sustainalytics has provided a second party opinion on RCBC's Sustainable Finance Framework and has concluded that the eligible categories for the use of proceeds are aligned with those recognized by the Gree Bond Principles 2021, the Social Bond Principles 2023 and the Sustainability Bond Guidelines 2021, administered by the International Capital Markets Association and the ASEAN Green Bond Standards, the ASEAN Capital Markets Forum.

ING Bank N.V., Singapore Branch, Morgan Stanley & Co. International plc and SMBC Nikko Securities (Hong Kong) Limited acted as Joint Lead Managers and Joing Bookrunners for the drawdown.

RCBC is a leading financial services provider in the Philippines offering a wide range of banking and financial products and services. RCBC is engaged in all aspects of traditional banking, investment banking, microfinance, retail financing (auto, mortgage and housing loans, and credit cards), remittance. leasing, foreign exchange, and stock brokering. RCBC is a member of the Yuchengco Group of Companies (YGC), one of the oldest and largest conglomerates in South East Asia.