Issuer: Royal KPN
Date October 1998
Amount: Dm2 billion ($1.2 billion)
Global coordinators: Warburg Dillon Read, ABN Amro
“The deal effectively reopened the corporate bond market,” says Manfred Schepers, managing director and global head of debt capital markets at Warburg Dillon Read. Dutch telecoms company Royal KPN proved with its first Deutschmark market entry that it wasn’t only governments that could issue during the crisis provoked by Russia’s domestic debt moratorium.
The company had roadshowed months in advance to introduce the KPN name to any Europeans unfamiliar with it and was able to tap into a wider investor base than ever before. Major participants included Belgium, France, Switzerland, Italy and the UK, who each bought around 10% of the overall deal. The issue was launched at a spread of 71 basis points over the January 2008 bund and gradually tightened to 69bp.
Alex Mathias