ANZ Bank NZ wants at least $100M in five-year bond offer

ANZ Bank New Zealand wants at least $100M in five-year bond offer

By Paul McBeth

Aug. 22 (BusinessDesk) - ANZ Bank New Zealand wants to raise at least $100 million by selling five-year bonds, which will have a lower interest rate than what it's offering term depositors.

The Auckland-based unit of Australia & New Zealand Banking Group has today opened an offer to sell unsecured, unsubordinated fixed rate bonds maturing on Sept. 1, 2022, with the capacity for unlimited oversubscriptions, it said in a statement.

The bonds have an indicative margin above the five-year swap rate of 1.05-to-1.1 percent, which at today's rate of 2.63 percent would see the bank pay annual interest of between 3.68 and 3.73 percent. That's still cheaper than raising funds from retail deposits, with ANZ currently offering an annual rate of 4.3 percent on a five-year term, according to the interest.co.nz website.

Banks have been complaining about their shrinking margins as growing turbulence in financial markets and the prospect of major central banks withdrawing the extraordinary stimulus of the past decade have pushed up international interest rates, making wholesale funding from overseas more expensive for lenders.

ANZ Bank New Zealand's interest costs ran up to $2.35 billion in the nine months ended June 30 on deposits and other borrowings of $102.09 billion at the balance date. That compares to a $2.59 billion interest expense on borrowings of some $99.94 billion a year earlier. Through the same period, interest income shrank to $4.62 billion on net loans totalling $116.45 billion from interest income of $4.84 billion on net advances of $114.62 billion.

The final interest rate will be set in a bookbuild on Friday, which is also when the bond offer closes. ANZ intends to offer the bonds to the New Zealand public and certain institutional investors, although there won't be a public pool.

The bonds are expected to be listed on the NZX's debt market, where the bank has eight other instruments listed.

(BusinessDesk)

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