CADES Launches 2013 Programme with US$3.5bn Bond Issue
France’s social security debt management agency, the Caisse d’Amortissement de la Dette Sociale (CADES), which sells government bonds, has begun its 2013 programme with a new US dollar benchmark issue in the five-year sector and reported that the issue size reached US$3.5bn, the largest since its inception in 1996.
CADES, an administrative public agency placed directly under the authority of the French State, said the issue has a final maturity of 29 January 2018, pays a coupon of 1.375% and has a reoffer price of 99.928%. Transaction was executed with a spread of 50 basis points over the US dollar (USD) mid-swap rate (equating to 64.2 basis points over US Treasury 0.75% December 2017).
CADES said that the issue was highly anticipated by the international capital markets, with the order book executed in record time among global investors. Joint-lead managers for the transaction were Daiwa Capital Markets, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs International and Royal Bank of Scotland.
The placement was distributed in Asia for 27%; the UK 26%; the Middle East 19%; the US 7%; and other European countries for 21%. Almost half of the issue was subscribed by banks (47%), as well as central banks (34%), asset managers (11%), private banks (4%), insurance and pension funds (3%) and others, including corporates, for 1%.
CADES announced earlier this month that it plans to issue a total of €30bn of debt in 2013, a programme that would make it “one of the main sovereign or quasi-sovereign European issuers”. It issued a total of €40.2bn in 2012.
The agency had a total of around €137bn in debt at the end of last year and is due to have amortised it entirely by 2025, when it is scheduled to cease operations.