Abu Dhabi, UAE—The First Abu Dhabi Bank, UAE’s largest bank, has issued a 5.25-year $600 million bond at US Treasury, which resulted in an all-in yield of 4.514 percent, on 19 January 2023.
This marks FAB’s second dollar issuance in a space of 10 days following the $500 million RegS five-year Sukuk issued on 9 January 2023.
FAB said it became the only regional bank to have successfully accessed the debt capital markets twice this year.
The $600 million bond issue was also the first dollar conventional bond issuance from a Middle East and North Africa (MENA) FI issuer, which also achieved the lowest spread (UST +105bps) by any bank globally for a fixed dollar five-year conventional bond in 2023.
The bond received orders of $1.75 billion, meaning it was oversubscribed three times with 76 percent of the issue placed with high-quality investors outside the MENA region.
FAB said the pricing represented a deeply negative new issue premium, which is an achievement when compared to global banks (including G-SIBs) paying an average 10bps new issue premium on their issuances.
Rula Al Qadi, Group Treasurer at FAB, commented, “We have now updated our Senior curve in both Sukuk and Bond format this year, which will enable us to deploy a more efficient pricing strategy across our balance sheet.”