The Kowloon-Canton Railway Corp (KCRC) has taken advantage of a recent dip in United States treasury yields to launch a US$1 billion 10-year global bond, its first on Wall Street.
The issue was due to be priced later yesterday in London and New York at between 167 and 169 basis points over comparable US treasuries.
Investment bankers in Hong Kong said orders worth $1.3 billion had been taken by yesterday evening. They expected slightly less than half of the issue to be distributed to US investors.
The indicative price range is wider than the KCRC paid for financing with a US$1 billion euro bond last summer, which analysts said reflected an abundance of new debt issues currently available to global investors.
'People are perceiving a limit to the upside [for the KCRC's top-grade paper],' said Bernard Peh, director of Barclays Capital.
'There are a lot of new issues.' In Asia several higher-yielding, riskier issues came to market this week including the Philippine sovereign bond which bankers said also was being priced yesterday. The bond was delayed one day by the stock-market crisis.
