More foreign bond sales in the pipeline

Several Korean banks are preparing to sell bonds overseas this year amid favorable market conditions following an upgrade of Korea’s credit rating by Moody’s, officials said yesterday.

Korea Development Bank (KDB) and other banks are seeking to sell bonds next month in a bid to secure further foreign currency liquidity.

“We have completed picking an arranger to sell dollar-denominated bonds and watching market conditions for the September sale,” said an official at the KDB.

If made, the debt issuance would mark KDB’s third sale of dollar bonds this year and the size of the debt sale could amount to around the benchmark volume or more. Usually, sales of overseas bonds are made with around $500 million as a benchmark. NH Bank, the banking unit of newly launched NH Financial Group, said it plans to issue overseas bonds worth $500 million next month with a maturity of around five years.

The euro zone debt crisis and the global economic slowdown have thrown cold water on the global debt issuance market, raising investors’ risk aversion.

However, analysts say markets for local banks’ debt sales may turn favorable after Moody’s on Monday raised its sovereign rating on Korea by one notch to “Aa3” from “A1.”

Yonhap