Zijin Mining Unit Looks for More Five-Year Dollar Bonds

Written by Donald A. Elizondo    Wednesday, 21 December 2011

An offshore funding vehicle of Chinese miner Zijin Mining intends to issue another dollar bond due 2016, just two weeks after the company's previous deal. Agricultural Bank of China's Hong Kong branch is also planning an offshore renminbi certificate of deposit. Two weeks after Chinese leading miner Zijin raised US$280 million via a five-year dollar bond, the firm looks set to tap the market again for a deal with the same tenor. According to market sources, Zijin International, the offshore funding vehicle of Zijin Mining, plans to raise another US$100 million-US$150 million via five-year dollar bonds. Similar to the previous one, the proposed dollar bonds due 2016 will be backed by a letter of credit (LC) from Bank of China. Last month Zijin priced a five-year US$280 million bond at 295 basis points (bp) over US Treasuries but the deal size was smaller than its original hopes of raising US$300 million-US$500 million. The proposed five-year dollar bonds look set to make up for the funding gap. It has sounded out to investors with an initial price talk of 280bp area over US Treasuries. Separately, Agricultural Bank of China's Hong Kong branch is launching a renminbi-denominated certificate of deposit (CDs) to take advantage of the city's soaring renminbi deposits which hit Rmb550 billion (US$85.2 billion) in May. The minimum size of the proposed CD will be Rmb200 million and the yield will be around 1.59% per annum, according to a sales document seen by Asiamoney PLUS.

Last Updated ( Wednesday, 21 December 2011 )