Apr 27, 2012 (LBO) – A successful 500 million US dollar bond sale by state-run Bank of Ceylon showed investor confidence and broadened access to international capital, chairman Gamini Wickramasinghe said. Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Citi and HSBC managed the bond. It was rated ‘B1’ by Moody’s and ‘BB-‘ by Fitch.
The bond issuance represents a key milestone for the Bank of Ceylon as the leading innovator in accessing new pools of funding and underscores investor confidence in the Bank of Ceylon story,” Gamini Wickramasinghe said in a statement.
“With this bond issuance, BoC has now accessed the global investor base.”
The bond priced at 6.875 percent a year was oversubscribed 7.7 times with orders of 3.86 billion US dollars, the bank said.
The bank said it intended to use the proceeds of the bond for ‘general corporate purposes.’