ADCB becomes first bank to issue dirham eurobond

13 Oct 2006

Dubai: Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank (ADCB) has completed the issuance of a Dh365 million floating rate note issue - making it the first UAE dirham eurobond to be issued by a bank.

This will also be the first UAE dirham bond to be cleared on Clearstream, the international eurobond clearing system. Standard Chartered was the arranger and sole lead manager of this issue.

The Dh365 million issue will be senior obligations of ADCB. The notes are issued off ADCB's $6 billion euro medium term note programme which was updated in June 2006. The programme is rated Aa3/A by Moody's and Standard & Poor's respectively. This is the highest rating given to any instrument from a bank in the Middle East.

This transaction is an important milestone in the development of the UAE dirham bond market, and is expected to lead the way for a number of such issuances in the region.

Deepak Kohli, global head of debt capital markets at Standard Chartered, said: "Standard Chartered is pleased to be associated with this landmark issuance.

"This transaction demonstrated our commitment to developing the bond market in the UAE, and going forward, we hope to see a number of similar GCC currency issues come to market."

Eirvin Knox, Chief Executive Officer of ADCB, said: "ADCB is once again delighted to have been involved in a ground breaking transaction. We are fully committed to the development of the UAE dirham bond market and view this as an important component of our long term fundraising initiative."

Since 1985 ADCB has reported successive years of record profits and consistent growth. Amongst UAE banks, ADCB has the second largest deposit base and total assets of Dh68.4 billion and net profit for the first six months of 2006 of Dh1.198 billion, the highest of any bank in the UAE for the period.

Gulf News 2006. All rights reserved.