© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: A pedestrian looks at his phone as he walks past a logo for Australia’s Westpac Banking Corp located outside a branch in central Sydney, Australia, November 5, 2018. REUTERS/David Gray/File Photo
By Scott Murdoch
SYDNEY (Reuters) – Westpac Banking (NYSE:) Corp, Australia’s third largest bank by market capitalisation, said on Monday it would raise A$750 million ($488.1 million) in an Additional Tier 1 (AT1) capital transaction.
The notes will be issued at $A100 each and potential investors have been told the interst margin be between 3.10% and 3.3%, according to a Westpac statement.
The final margin will be set during a bookbuild which will run for a week from Monday and the bank has the option to increase or decrease the size of the offer.
Australia’s prudential regulator said in September it would review the rules around AT1 bonds, which were impacted by the collapse of Credit Suisse in March, to determine they were still fit for purpose.
The AT1 bonds are used by banks to stabilise cashflow in periods of stress, according to APRA.
The bonds became an object of concern to the global financial sector when Switzerland’s financial regulator wrote…
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