BCR prints a new Senior Non-Preferred RON bond issuance with a total value of 600 million lei, reaching a total of 2.7 billion lei in the past two years

Banca Comercială Română (BCR) has successfully printed a new senior non-preferred  bond issuance of 600 million lei, continuing its strategy towards expanding its financing sources and contributing to the development of the capital market in Romania.

The bank has printed in the two past years an amount of 2.7 billion lei in bond issuance, being one the most active issuers on the Bucharest Stock Exchange.

The issuance represents senior non-preferred notes, with a 7-year maturity, while plans are for it to be listed on the Bucharest Stock Exchange. The notes have been assigned  an expected long-term rating of BBB+ by Fitch.

The book building process attracted an extremely strong interest from investors, hence the deal was successfully priced at a coupon of 5.98%, also reflecting the solid performance of the bank. The distribution was balanced between pension funds, asset managers, insurance companies, credit institutions – and benefitted from the participation of European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and International Finance Corporation (IFC).

"We are consistent and commited to our journey of having reccurent bond issuance. It’s our forth substantial bond issuance in lei, including  a green bond issuance, in the past two years. The Romanian capital market it’s becoming more attractive to strategic investors, with a long term vision, and I want to thank all contributors to this initiative for believing in our vision for the sustainable transformation of the economy", stated Sergiu Manea, CEO of Banca Comercială Română.

The bond issuance has shown its early success when, at the end of the first subscription day, the order book was well covered by more than two times above the 400 million lei amount targeted. On the second day the order book was significantly oversubscribed at more than 1 billion RON, leading to the decision to close the book early and to increase the issued amount to RON 600 million.

With this issuance, BCR took another step forward towards the compliance with the EU regulations on the minimum capacity that banks must have in order to absorb the losses, the Minimum Requirements of own funds and Eligible Liabilities (MREL) and MREL guidelines in line with targeted resolution strategy.