Rizal Commercial Banking Corporation (RCBC) has raised $350 million from the U.S. dollar debt markets through its $4 billion Medium Term Note Program.

In a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange, the bank announced the successful pricing of its five-year Senior Unsecured Fixed Rate Sustainability Bonds.

The Notes, rated Baa3 by Moody's, will be issued at 99.279 with a coupon of 5.375 percent per annum and a maturity date of January 29, 2030. Issued under RCBC's Sustainable Finance Framework, the notes have denominations of $200,000 and increments of $1,000 thereafter, settling on January 28, 2025. They will be listed on the Singapore Exchange Securities Trading Limited, similar to the Bank's other two outstanding USD-denominated bonds.

RCBC announced a mandate for a potential US dollar Sustainability Bond transaction on January 20, 2024, and conducted a series of fixed income investor calls. After gathering investor feedback, the Bank released terms and initial price guidance for the new 5-year bond on January 21, 2025, at a spread of 145 bps over the 5-year U.S. Treasury yield.

"The transaction saw strong interest from a wide range of high-quality Asian and European investors, which allowed the Bank to tighten final price guidance to 115 bps over the 5-year Treasury yield," RCBC said.

The Notes priced at a spread of 115 bps over the 5-year U.S. Treasury yield, representing a price tightening of 30 bps from initial price guidance. This is the tightest pricing spread achieved among RCBC's US dollar senior unsecured issuances.

"Order books saw strong momentum throughout the day, with the final order book at over $1 billion and the Notes ending up 2.9 times oversubscribed," the bank noted.

Orders were received from more than 77 accounts, reflecting global investors' continued confidence in RCBC and its credit. The order book was well diversified with 57 percent allocated to asset managers, 38 percent to banks, and 5 percent to insurance companies and private banks.

RCBC will use the net proceeds from the issuance to support, finance, or refinance loans to customers or its own operating activities in eligible green and social categories as defined in its Sustainable Finance Framework.

Sustainalytics has provided a second party opinion on RCBC's Sustainable Finance Framework, concluding that the eligible categories for the use of proceeds align with the Green Bond Principles 2021, the Social Bond Principles 2023, and the Sustainability Bond Guidelines 2021, administered by the International Capital Markets Association, and the ASEAN Green Bond Standards of the ASEAN Capital Markets Forum.