Sri Lanka Bank of Ceylon hires foreign banks to sell bond

Apr 17, 2012 (LBO) – Sri Lanka’s state-owned Bank of Ceylon has hired several foreign banks to arrange bond investor meetings in Asia, Europe and the US ahead of a planned new bond issue.

It has hired Bank of America Corp.

, Citigroup Inc. and HSBC Holdings to arrange bond investor meetings, Bloomberg news agency has reported.

Bank of Ceylon has earlier said that it was planning a 500 million US dollar bond issue.

Sri Lanka is considering issuing more sovereign bonds this year and has said a 10-year bond is being considered when its debut 500 million five-year dollar bond matures.

Treasury secretary P B Jayasundera has said the treasury is also looking at issuing a bigger bond worth 750 million or even one billion dollars.

The debut bond was meant to help the private and banks go for longer maturity funding, he has said.