La Banque Postale sets a new record in the Additional Tier 1 market.
On Wednesday 22nd of September, La Banque Postale (“LBP”) priced a €750m Perpetual (non-call 7.5-year) AT1 with a 3% coupon. This transaction sets a new record in the EUR AT1 market with the lowest coupon ever achieved by a European bank.
Through this AT1 issuance, LBP aimed to optimize its existing capital structure at very attractive market conditions.
Books opened at 9:26 CET with IPTs of 3.375% area for an intraday execution. Final terms were set at 12:29 CET (€750m at a 3.00% coupon), on the back of a €1.4bn book at the peak.
The issuance received a strong support from LBP’s domestic investor base, with French investors leading the allocation (33%). The transaction also enjoyed a very nice diversification into continental Europe, notably Switzerland (15%), Germany & Austria (14%), Benelux (8%) and Southern Europe (8%). The UK demand also stood at 19%. In terms of investor types, asset managers naturally took the lion share (70%), followed by insurers/pension funds (15%) and banks/private banks (15%). 122 investors were allocated.
This transaction follows LBP’s inaugural €750m AT1 issuance in November 2019, on which Natixis acted as Joint Bookrunner.