TRIPLE-A rated Bayerische Landesbank wants to get involved in the Asian capital market and plans a dragon issue of up to US$500 million, said Gerold Brandt, of the bank's board of management.
The bank, one of the largest issuers of its own bonds, expects to issue more than 40 billion marks (about HK$203.8 billion) in new securities in 1994. It will be its first dragon.
Mr Brandt said the bank would wait until after the Federal Reserve Open Market Committee's meeting this week, but admitted that announcing a dragon put it under pressure to produce an issue for the market.
'You put yourself under pressure but you can never put the market under pressure,' he said. 'We are between a rock and a hard place.' The bank would probably issue a record-sized bond; previous US dollar dragon issues tended to be for about $250 million to $300 million.
'But $300 million for a bank of our calibre is not very magnificent, so depending on the reaction of the market it could be $300 million to $500 million,' Mr Brandt said.
The issue would probably be in the region of four to five years, which seemed to be the territory's favoured maturity, he said.
The bank planned to emphasise the Asian nature of the deal.