NBAD plans second sale of Kangaroo bonds

Abu Dhabi lender is diversifying its lender base.

National Bank of Abu Dhabi (NBAD) plans to sell Kangaroo bonds, the lender's second foray into the Australian dollar-denominated debt market, as it diversifies its investor base.

Australia & New Zealand Banking Group, Citigroup, HSBC and National Bank of Abu Dhabi are arranging the sale of five-year notes, according to an email from ANZ. The lender is marketing the sale at about 130 basis points more than swaps, according to a person familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified because the terms aren’t set.

NBAD, which last year hired Alex Thursby from ANZ as its chief executive, is selling bonds in currencies from the Mexican peso to Malaysia's ringgit to tap wider investor pools. Last year, the lender raised A$300 million (Dh994.8m) from Kangaroo bonds and sold 15-year so-called Uridashi bonds denominated in Mexican pesos to Japanese retail investors.

The UAE’s second-biggest lender by assets last sold Australian dollar debt in 2007, offering A$30m of one-year floating-rate securities, according to the data. Emirates Bank International’s A$250m of notes in November 2006 was the first Kangaroo by a Middle Eastern borrower, the data shows.

The Abu Dhabi-based bank has the fourth-highest investment grade rating at both Moody’s Investors Service and Standard & Poor’s, data compiled by Bloomberg shows.

The yield on NBAD’s 5 per cent Kangaroo bonds maturing in 2018 was at 4.64 per cent today.

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