Macquarie makes rare s144a issue
Macquarie Bank (rated A) sold term debt in the US s144A market last week for the first time in three years. The bank sold US$750 million of three year bonds and US$500 million of three year floating rate notes, both priced at 79 basis points over swap/Libor.Westpac was the last bank to sell term debt in the s144A market, back in January, when it sold US$1.25 billion of three-year bonds at 60 bps over US Treasury bonds, as well as five year debt.Macquarie last sold subordinated debt in the s144A market in April 2011. Meanwhile, National Australia Bank (rated AA-) tapped the Euromarket last week for €500 million for five years, priced at 50 bps over Euribor.ANZ (rated AA-) was active in the Uridashi market, selling NZ$21.2 million, A$49.4 million and US$15.8 million of five year bonds, with fixed rate coupons of 4.72 per cent, 3.76 per cent and 1.65 per cent, respectively. The bank also sold 63.9 million South African rand of three year bonds, which will pay a coupon of 7.11 per cent per annum.In the domestic corporate bond market, activity was again relatively subdued last week. In fact, net issuance based on the transactions announced, was negative.Issuance announced totalled just A$1.5 billion, while ING Bank (Australia) said it would buy back up to A$2 billion of its government guaranteed, March 2015 bonds. The issue is evenly divided between fixed and floating rate tranches and ING is offering 10 bps under swap/bank bills for the buyback. The offer closes on Wednesday.Westpac and Investec Australia are the only other remaining issuers to have government guaranteed bonds outstanding in any volume in the domestic market. Westpac may have as much as A$650 million of November 2014 outstanding while Investec has A$450 million of November 2014 and A$300 million of March 2015 bonds outstanding.