Shun Tak, the Macau conglomerate, issued its US$400 million seven year maturity bond in the hope that the issuance would re-open the market for unrated paper after the lunar new year break.
A majority stake in the conglomerate is owned by Stanley Ho and the company enjoys strong name recall despite the lack of any formal rating.
A large volume of Macau paper outstanding comes from the gambling sector and Shun Tal would be the first conglomerate to issue a US dollar bond.
The initial discussions pegged the price at the 6% area but it was finally set between 5.7% to 5.8%. The offer attracted orders from 150 investors amounting to US$5.25 billion. 92% of the orders were Asian investors while the remainder is from Europe. For allocations, fund managers had 47%, private banks 37% while insurance and other banking institutions had 8% each.
The bond issue is a signal as to increased confidence from the Macau government would approve its future residential project, the Harbour Mile.
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