First Abu Dhabi Bank (FAB), the UAE’s biggest lender by assets, has placed a 1.5 billion Chinese yuan ($232 million) five-year Formosa bond at 3.15 percent coupon.

The issuance, which is the year’s first, marks the lowest coupon paid by a MENA bank on a public Chinese yuan five-year issuance, FAB said on Tuesday.

Formosa bonds are sold in Taiwan by foreign borrowers but are denominated in currencies other than the Taiwanese dollar.

The offering was upsized to CNY 1.5 billion from a target size of CNY 1 billion. The investors included both onshore Taiwanese and Asian investors and was well diversified amongst life insurers, banks, fund managers and securities houses., the bank said.

Rula Al Qadi, managing director and head of group funding at FAB, commented: “We are very pleased to have issued the first CNY deal of the year in the Formosa market. FAB has always been very well received in the Formosa market whether issuing in CNY or USD and we tend to be a frequent issuer in this market as a commitment to the Taiwanese and broader Asian investors.”

He said the deal is once again a tremendous success because it is the lowest coupon ever on a five-year public CNY bond issued by a MENA bank and, “on a swapped to USD basis, it comes well inside of our funding curve.”

(Writing by Brinda Darasha; editing by)

brinda.darasha@refinitiv.com

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