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Singapore's army of private bank accounts were spoilt for choice this week with a triple-whammy of bank capital transactions that suited them perfectly -- an additional tier one from United Overseas Bank and tier two offerings from Societe Generale and National Australia Bank.
The Singapore dollar market's reputation as a solid source of bank capital funding was only cemented last year thanks to high profile transactions from foreign lenders such as ANZ, BPCE Group, Westpac and Julius Baer on top of those issued by the big three Singaporean banks DBS, OCBC and UOB.
The trend has continued this year with DBS selling a S$250m ($182m) tier two in January, followed by a S$450m tier two from Netherlands lender ABN Amro two months later.
"The Singapore investor base is quite PB-heavy, so they've always been interested in trades that offer juicy yields," a Hong Kong-based local currency banker said.
"But during volatile periods, such as the one we're in right now, they're also fairly risk sensitive and that's where bank capital fits in since banks are usually considered safe while the structural subordination offers investors extra spread over senior notes."
With Singapore PBs' appetite for bank capital trades going strong, bankers on the UOB and SocGen trades knew that their respective offerings would likely resonate well with investors.
Lack of supply
UOB, in particular, knew its A3/BBB rated perpetual non call five year would be welcomed because of its Singaporean background and the scarcity of AT1s in the country's market with just two such transactions since the start of 2015 -- Julius Baer in November 2015 and OCBC three months before that.
Joint bookrunners Credit Suisse, HSBC, Standard Chartered and UOB launched the...