Saudi Arabia’s Top Bank Follows UAE Rivals to Dollar Bond Market

(Bloomberg) -- Saudi Arabia’s National Commercial Bank hired advisers to tap the dollar bond market, joining rivals in the neighboring United Arab Emirates to take advantage of investors’ appetite for yield.

The bank mandated Citigroup Inc., Emirates NBD PJSC, Goldman Sachs Group Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co., Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, NCB Capital and Standard Chartered Plc as lead managers and bookrunners for the potential Islamic bond offering, according to a statement.

The unprecedented monetary stimulus to help economies stung by the coronavirus crisis has brought yields near or below zero in developed markets and has encouraged issuers to offer debt while it remains cheap to do so. Dubai’s Emirates NBD and First Abu Dhabi Bank PJSC tapped the bond market earlier this month.

• The advisers will arrange a global investor conference call on Monday and a series of fixed-income investor calls, according to a person familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified because the matter is private
• A benchmark fixed-rate USD-denominated Regulation S PNC6 Basel III compliant Tier 1 sukuk unrated offering will follow, subject to market conditions
• NCB is rated A1 (negative) by Moody’s, BBB+ (positive) by S&P and A- (negative) by Fitch

National Commercial Bank, the largest bank in Saudi Arabia by assets, is in the process of taking over Samba Financial Group.