D&L lists P 5-B maiden offering

Specialty plastic and food input manufacturer D&L Industries listed its P5-billion bonds on the local fixed income platform, Philippine Dealing & Exchange Corp. on Tuesday, marking its debut as a local bond issuer with triple-A credit rating.

Priced at one of the lowest rates in local corporate bond history, D&L’s three- and five-year bonds carried interest rates of 2.7885 percent and 3.5962 percent a year, respectively.

The order book for this maiden bond offering hit P13.8 billion or 4.6 times the base offer size of P3 billion, allowing D&L to lock in favorable borrowing rates.

D&L disclosed to the Philippine Stock Exchange on Tuesday that P3 billion of its maiden bond issuance consisted of securities with three-year tenor. Of these, corporate investors took up 82.96 percent while individuals accounted for 17.04 percent.

Meanwhile, P2 billion of the issuance consisted of five-year bonds, of which 84.71 percent were taken up by corporate investors while individuals subscribed to 15.29 percent of total.

Local debt watchdog Philippine Rating Services Corp. has rated the bonds “PRS Aaa” with “stable” outlook, the highest credit rating assigned by the agency. INQ