China Resources Land returns with $250 million tap

China Resources Land (CRL) returned to the market yesterday with a $250 million tap on its recent $750 million five-year bond, which priced in May, increasing the total issue size to $1 billion. HSBC was a global co-ordinator. HSBC, BOCI and DBS — the same arrangers for the deal in May — acted as joint bookrunners.

The deal gathered a strong order book of $3 billion with 168 accounts participating. Asian investors were allocated 76% and European investors 24%. By investor type, fund managers were allocated 59%, insurers 16%, private banks 13%, banks 8% and others 5%.

Investors piled into the deal, thanks in part, to the generous new-issue premium. The leads started marketing the deal yesterday morning in the area of 4.95% and, according to an investor, this offered a hefty pick up of about 33bp over the existing China Resources Land 2016s.

Investors were told the size would be capped at $250 million and that the company would not be tapping the bond market for the rest of the year. Later yesterday afternoon the guidance was tightened to 4.85% plus or minus 5bp and the bonds eventually priced at 4.8%, at the tight end of that range. The bonds were reoffered at 99.252 and offered a spread of 331.5bp over Treasuries.

When CRL originally tapped the market in May, the five-year deal priced at Treasuries plus 290bp and the notes were reoffered at 99.35 to yield 4.77%. On a spread basis, the new bonds came 41.5bp wider than the original deal — and 3bp wider on a yield basis. This drew criticism from rivals.

“If you were an investor in the original deal, you’d be thinking why did I buy that?” said a rival banker. “The tap is coming at both a wider spread and higher yield than the original launch, and the outstanding bonds have moved wider in the secondary market as a result, which means that they would have to be marked down.”

A person familiar with the deal, however, defended the pricing, noting that it was not a bad outcome given that markets have been volatile, with investors fretting over whether US lawmakers would raise the debt ceiling while US Treasuries yields have rallied strongly since China Resources Land’s deal priced in May.

Based on the final pricing and the aforementioned estimation of a 33bp pick up, the deal offered a new-issue premium of about 18bp. Rivals put the premium as wide as 22bp, while the person familiar with the deal had it at 13.5bp.

The bonds mature May 19, 2016. CRL’s issue is rated Baa2 by Moody’s and BBB by Standard & Poor’s. The company is a property developer that is 65.3%-owned by China Resources Holdings, a conglomerate that is owned by China’s state council.

Away from China Resources Land, Ballarpur International Graphic Paper will be holding meetings in Singapore today, in Hong Kong on Friday, London on Monday and Zurich and Geneva on Tuesday. HSBC and the Royal Bank of Scotland are the arrangers. The bonds will be offered to professional US investors.

Ballarpur International Graphic Paper is rated BB- by S&P and Fitch and majority owned by Ballarpur Industries, India’s largest manufacturer of writing and printing paper.

This is Ballarpur’s debut dollar bond and it will be the first high-yield dollar bond to price since Vedanta’s issue in May. The high-yield market has been shut for more than a month as investors have lost their risk appetite due to worries of potential default on European and US debt.

It will be interesting to see how the deal is received by investors, but it is likely to appeal to private banks, which have been heavily supporting hybrids, rather than institutional investors. Ballarpur is expected to have an investor-friendly structure similar to Citic Pacific and the notes will be callable at the fifth year.