Continuing to Optimize Financial Structure to Foster Long-term Growth
HONG KONG, Jan. 21, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- CIFI Holdings (Group) Co. Ltd. ("CIFI", or the "Group", HKEX Code: 884), one of the "Top 100 Real Estate Developers in China", announced that the Group has successfully issued its third issue five-year USD bonds with a coupon rate of 8.875%, with an order book of over USD1.1bn from investors in Asia and Europe. Net proceeds from the bond issue will mainly be used to refinance the Group's existing debt and for other general corporate purposes.
Mr. LIN Zhong, CIFI's Chairman, commented, "We are delighted to have received an overwhelming response for the subscription of our bonds among investors. Although the market was crowded with a number of bond issues being offered at the same time, CIFI's bonds received an excellent order book from investors. This helped to tighten the effective interest rate of our five-year bonds to lower than 9%, which is a major milestone for the Group. Our new bonds were issued at a coupon rate of 8.875% per annum, a remarkable decrease of 3.375 percentage points in just nine months compared to the first USD bond issue in April 2013 at a coupon rate of 12.25%. This reflects that CIFI's operational strategies and continuous business growth have been widely recognized by the investment community. The improving financial structure lays a significantly better foundation for CIFI to pursue long-term growth."
CIFI was given issuer credit ratings of B+, B1 and B+ by Fitch, Moody's and Standard & Poor's, respectively. The latest bond issue is expected to receive issues ratings of B+, B2 and B by Fitch, Moody's and Standard & Poor's, respectively.
CIFI' new bond issue was lead managed by Standard Chartered Bank, Citi, Deutsche Bank, HSBC and Haitong International.
