Bank in Tianjin issues China’s first Basel III-compliant bond

US$244 million was raised.

Tianjin Binhai Rural Commercial Bank priced China’s first Basel III-compliant bond late last week, whetting investor appetite for a further US$38 billion of issuance.

The tier-2 bond has a 10-year maturity and is callable after five years. It drew good investor response and was finally 1.27 times covered despite its unfamiliar structure. Demand reached more than US$489 million, according to sources.

The majority of the notes, however, went to wealth management products and private banks. Demand from the WMP accounts was driven by investors' need to conform to regulatory requirements and balance their portfolios.

Basel III requires that Chinese and other banks must have full discretion to cancel coupon payments on tier-1 perpetual securities.Tier-2 bonds will write down to zero if the banks are assessed as non-viable by the China Banking Regulatory Commission, the financial system regulator.