Asian Development Bank launches $10 billion Asian currency note program

By Reshmi Basu

New York, Sept. 14 - Asian Development Bank said it is lining up the maiden offerings of S$300 in five-year notes in Singapore and HK$1 billion in three-year bonds in Hong Kong under its newly launched $10 billion Asian currency note program. The deals will price by the end of the week.

DBS Group is the arranger for the program as a whole and also acted as the bookrunner for the Singapore-dollar-denominated issue.

HSBC was the bookrunner for the Hong Kong dollar issue.

The program is Asia's first multi-currency bond platform since the 1997 financial crisis. The program links domestic capital markets of Singapore, Hong Kong and China. Malaysia and Thailand will join later.

"It is a logical continuation of ADB's market-opening transactions in Asian local currency bond markets over the last three years and fully in line with ADB's support to the ASEAN+3 bond market initiative," said Khempheng Pholsena, vice president, in a news statement.

"It is important for us to pave the way for new instruments to be introduced," Pholsena added.

ADB said it also intends to issue 6.5 billion baht in five-year and 10-year bonds, upon receiving approval from the necessary agencies.

Standard Chartered and Bank of Ayudha are the lead managers for the issue.

Asian Development Bank is a Manila, Philippines-based multilateral development finance institution.

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