Chiba Bank Ltd. was rewarded for pushing ahead with the first dollar bond sale by a Japanese regional bank even as U.S. corporate borrowing costs leaped.
The lender issued $300 million of notes in the U.S. currency this month at a 2.55 percent yield. That compares with an average 2.81 percent paid by dollar bonds with an A rating on Oct. 30, Bank of America Merrill Lynch indexes show. U.S. corporate bond spreads widened the most in 16 months in mid-October as pestilence, war and economic woe prompted investors to flee riskier debt.
"There are other regional banks considering raising non-yen currencies to fund their offshore expansion," Malcolm Mui, the Hong Kong-based head of investment-grade syndicate for Asia ex-Japan at Nomura Holdings Inc. — which managed the sale with Goldman Sachs Group Inc. — said in an Oct. 24 interview. "Some of these regional banks have international expansion plans."
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