Suncorp increases CPS and Macquarie prices

Suncorp increased the size of the sale of convertible preference shares by five per cent yesterday to $735 million, while Macquarie priced its own $600 million similar preference share sale at 30 points higher than Suncorp.

Suncorp, with a slightly better credit rating of A-, priced the preference shares at 320 basis points over the swap rate - with the target market appearing to be institutions through the appointment of Citi, JPMorgan, Macquarie and UBS as joint lead managers.

Macquarie's first public capital market offering, of $600 million CPS, was part completed yesterday, with a margin set at 3.5 percentage through the institutional bookbuild.

The group would not say what level of stock was allocated to institutions that participated in the bookbuild, however.

A strong retail bias is apparent, with plans to sell the preference shares with six broker groups, including nabCapital and Westpac.