After five weeks of complete freeze there were signs of a slight thaw in late October after governments offered financial institutions capital and other support in the form of debt guarantees in an attempt to get the credit markets functioning once more. So the appearance of a credit new issue was a sight for sore eyes.
That the deal was a £400 million 10-year unsecured bond for Lloyds TSB was a surprise as the bank was able to claim a bold reopening of the bank debt market – and without a government guarantee.
"It was, in fact, the first senior unsecured sterling deal ever for Lloyds," says Farouk Ramzan, head of debt capital markets at Lloyds. "We are very clear about the importance of the government guarantee system for short-dated issuance. However, we had sourced a reverse order for some size and felt that given the rarity value, we...
