On September 19th 2018，Agricultural Development Bank of China (“ADBC”) successfully completed the issuance of bonds worth 1.2 billion yuan and 700 million US dollar. The dim sum bond issuance is a 2 years 1.2 billion priced at 4.16%, oversubscribed at 2.73 times. The 700 million US dollar bond priced at 3ML+62bps oversubscribed 3.26 times. The dual currency tranche were well received by foreign investors including central banks, sovereign funds, commercial banks, security firms, funds and asset management companies, etc. The diversified high-quality orders demonstrated the great recognition of ADBC from foreign investors. The Joint Global Coordinators of the transaction are Bank of China, Standard Chartered Bank and Bank of Communications and the Joint Bookrunners are Crédit Agricole CIB, BOCOM International, Agricultural Bank of China Limited Hong Kong Branch, ABC International, ICBC (Asia), HSBC, Mizuho Securities, Commerzbank, Citigroup, and J.P. Morgan.

This transaction not only is ADBC’s first successful dim sum bond issuance since 2014, but also its first foreign currency-denominated bond issuance. The offshore bond issuance has allowed the bank to expand its financing business and enhance the internationalization of the China bond market. Since 2012, ADBC has issued dim sum bonds four times to date with a total value of RMB 11 billion. Restarting the offshore issuance of dual currency bonds has helped to meet investors’ requirements for different currencies, while also providing high quality and investment grade financial products. This successful bond issuance increases ADBC’s influence in the international financial market, and promotes the opening of China bond market and internationalization of RMB. It is expected that there will be further offshore bond issuance from ADBC by the end of this year. 

The ADBC is the only agricultural policy bank directly under the leadership of the State Council, and is the third largest issuer in the domestic bond market. For a long time, ADBC has issued policy-based financial bonds through onshore and offshore financial markets. At the same time, ADBC has extensively collected social funds to support key sectors and weak areas of the agriculture and the rural areas, which has served an important role for the rural revitalization. By providing high quality and high credit rated bonds to the international market, ADBC will continue to enhance its service capacity to global investors. Further, this initiative by ADBC will help promote the opening of China capital market, improve the interconnections between China and international bond markets and serve the overall reform and opening of China’s bond market.（Yan Xu）