Anglo Irish Bank launched and priced its second record-breaking regulatory capital issue today, the largest ever Irish tier 1 bond to be sold to retail and private banking investors.
The bond was tripled in size from ?200 million ($246 million) to ?600 million following strong demand. It follows the bank's ?750 million lower tier 2 regulatory capital issue in June this year, which was the largest ever debt capital issue by an Irish bank.
Today's issue set another record for Ireland, being the country's largest ever non-innovative tier 1 issue. Non-innovative or core issues of tier 1 regulatory capital have greater loss-absorbency than innovative issues.
The head of DCM at Anglo Irish Bank said the issue underlined the bank's confidence in the growth of its lending practices. ABN Amro, who led the deal alongside Merrill Lynch, said the popularity of the issue was demonstrated by the fact that retail and private bank investors from 18 countries bought into the deal.
Over 65% of the order book was retail or private banking, with Dutch investors overall accounting for 30% of the book and Irish investors 18%.
The notes are perpetual non-call five-and-a-half year bonds with a price of 6% in year one and 25 basis points over 10-year constant maturity swaps then after.