Sri Lanka hires HSBC, Bank of America, RBS to sell $1 billion of bonds

By Anusha Ondaatjie | Bloomberg
.............................................................................................................................................................................................

Sri Lanka hired HSBC Holdings Plc, Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc and Bank of America Corp. to manage a proposed $1 billion overseas bond sale later this year, the South Asian island’s central bank said.

The selection was made from among seven foreign lenders and investment banks that expressed their interest to manage the sale, the Central Bank of Sri Lanka said on its Web site today.

The bond sale would be subject to market conditions, the central bank said. It appointed Bank of Ceylon as co-manager to work with the lead arrangers for the issue.

Sri Lanka in July announced plans to sell the bonds, with maturities of as much as 10 years, by the end of 2010 to help refinance expensive loans. The end of the island’s three decades of civil war in May has restored investor confidence and attracted foreign flows.

HSBC, JPMorgan Chase & Co., and Royal Bank of Scotland helped arrange Sri Lanka’s last global bond sale in October that attracted bids for more than 13 times the $500 million offered.

This year’s overseas debt sale will be the third by the nation since its debut offering in October 2007.

Standard & Poor’s and Fitch Ratings raised their outlook on Sri Lanka’s debt in October last year. S&P revised it to positive from stable, and assigned the nation’s long-term foreign-currency debt rating at B, five levels below investment grade. Fitch changed the outlook to stable from negative. It affirmed Sri Lanka’s rating at B+, four levels below investment grade.

© Bloomberg