Linklaters and Allens have advised Bank of China’s Sydney branch on its 2 billion yuan ($320.71 million) note offering, the first yuan bond issued in Australia.
The two-year bond, with an annual interest rate of 3.25 percent, was oversubscribed 1.45 times and around 27.5 percent of the bonds was subscribed by local investors, the Xinhua News Agency reported, citing the bank.
The Linklaters and Allens team was led by Linklaters’ Hong Kong-based partner Michael Ng and Allens partner James Darcy.
Clifford Chance’s Hong Kong team acted for the arrangers on the deal, which included Bank of China subsidiaries as well as ANZ, National Australia Bank, Royal Bank of Scotland and Westpac Banking Corp.
The listing of the bond on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) marked the first listing of yuan-denominated bond issued by a Chinese company. This came after the Bank of China and the ASX signed an agreement in February to offer a yuan settlement service to Chinese and Australian financial markets, which aims to facilitate the issuance of yuan bonds by Chinese companies on the Australian exchange.
The yuan bond issue in Australia marked China’s increasing efforts in the internationalisation of yuan. Bank of China has previously issued yuan bonds in Hong Kong, UK and Singapore, which were all advised by Linklaters.
