China draws over $17 bln in orders for dollar bond sale

By Julia Fioretti

HONG KONG (Reuters) – China drew over $17 billion in orders for a sovereign dollar bond sale of $3 billion on Thursday against a backdrop of a global market sell-off and trade war with the United States.

The $3 billion deal is only the third U.S.-dollar denominated issuance by China in the last 14 years. It returned to global markets in October last year for the first time since 2004.

China is selling five-year, 10-year and 30-year bonds at 30-35, 45-50, 70-75 basis points (bps) over U.S. Treasuries, respectively, according to a term sheet seen by Reuters.

The final pricing is expected later on Thursday.

That compared to an initial guidance of 50 bps, 65 bps and 90 bps for the five-, 10- and 30-year tranches, respectively, showing healthy investor demand despite the global market rout that followed Wall Street’s worst losses in eight months.

Investors put in over $17 billion of orders, the term sheet showed, well in excess of what was on offer.

The backdrop to the bond sale is very different to last year, with China locked in a trade war with the United States in which neither side is showing any sign of backing down and tariffs imposed on billions of dollars of each other’s goods.

Last year’s $2 billion bond sale was priced very tightly, with the 10-year tranche coming in at 25 bps over U.S. Treasuries.

Spreads between the Chinese 10-year benchmark () and U.S. 10-year Treasuries () stood at 44 bps on Thursday.

China hired 12 banks including Bank of China (SS:), China Construction Bank (SS:), Deutsche Bank (DE:), Goldman Sachs (N:), HSBC (L:) and J.P. Morgan (N:) for the deal.

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