EastWest Bank starts P5-B LTNCD offer to investors

MANILA, Philippines - East West Banking Corp. started yesterday offering P5 billion worth of long term negotiable certificates of deposit (LTNCD), to investors, the bank said in a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange.

“We wish to disclose that EastWest will begin its tranched offering of its LTNCD on Nov. 25, 2013. The LTNCD will have a final maturity of June 5, 2019,” it said.

EastWest said the offering would be made available to its valued clients in a program of weekly tranches over the next six months.

“The offering may end earlier should the approved P5 billion face value be exhausted earlier,” it said.

The LTNCD offering is slated to carry yields in the range of 3.125 percent to 3.375 percent per annum, depending on market conditions and demand for the instrument.

Early this month, the Monetary Board, the policy-making body of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, approved the request of the Gotianun-led EastWest to issue another P5-billion worth of LTNCDs.

EastWest and Unicapital Inc. are the lead arrangers for the issuance.

In November 2012, EastWest issued P1.5 billion in LTNCDs. This issuance was completed recently.

“LTNCD is a product and a funding option we would like to offer to our clients on a continuous basis,” EastWest president & CEO Antonio Moncupa Jr. said.

EastWest has been profitable for the past months, posting a 28 percent increase in net income to P1.7 billion in the first nine months of the year from the same percent in 2012.