IGM ASIAN CREDIT - Hot Topics

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1 ASIAN CREDIT - Hot Topics 4 February 2016 Tel: Formosa Bonds On Fire - January 2016 and beyond By Nethelie Wong Market Highlights The Formosa bond market in Taiwan had a great start in 2016 as it already printed a total of US$2.651bn from 7 deals in January, representing a 28.88% jump year-on-year. But, what is more exciting is that the issuance will make a huge leap of at least 64% in February as another US$4.835bn of 17 deals have been priced and set to settle between February 1 to 19. With still two full weeks in February after the Chinese New Year, it is only US$442m short of the best month in the history of Formosa when US$5.277bn of issuance was recorded in September YTD USD (bln) No. of Deals Investors did not make many Formosa purchases in the last two months (US$2.856bn) of So, they have stacked up quite some cash. And, usually the first quarter is the time for fund managers to build their portfolios for the whole year," said a Taiwanese banker involved in Formosa bonds

2 In fact, the total issuance year to date is at a healthy pace, matching the US$9.694bn issuance in the first quarter of "The renminbi has depreciated substantially and been very volatile since the second half of So, investors tend to stay away from Bao Dao bonds (renminbi-denominated bonds in Taiwan) for now, and turn to US$ assets," explained the banker. There was no Bao Dao bond issuance in January. Total issuance of Formosa bonds of all currencies in 2015 amounted to US$35bn equivalent. US$ bonds accounted for 82.99% of the total last year, followed by renminbi at 15.47% and A$ at 1.54%. This year, many bankers believe the US$ share will rise because of the decline in renminbi issuance. Since a rule change on the investment classification of Formosa bonds in April 2014, foreign issuers have rushed to the Formosa bond market. The rule now stipulates that if a Formosa bond, including Bao Dao, is listed in Taiwan, it can be counted towards the domestic investment quota for an insurance investor even if the issuer is based offshore and the security is cleared outside Taiwan. Given Taiwan's 30-year government bonds yield around 1.6%-1.8% only, it is easily understandable why investors find it attractive to buy 30-year Formosa bonds which are mostly yielding at least 4%. Despite a new president coming to the office in May, many market participants do not expect the economy in Taiwan to change drastically, thus the New Taiwan Dollar will likely remain weak, so will the low interest rate environment. On the other hand, locking into a persistently strong US$ seems sensible. Among the 22 deals priced this year, 19 of them are 30-year callable bonds plus one 30-year bullet, one perpetual and one 12-year issue, reflecting the typical asset-liability needs of insurance companies. This compares to 96.12% in 30- year, 2.26% in 20-year and 1.62% in 5-year of the US$ Formosa issuance in As of February 4, US$ 19.16bn of deals with tenors above 30 years had been priced globally this year in which the Formosa market had a 38.74% slice, meaning the Formosa route has become an alternative funding channel for longterm paper. So any issuers thinking of raising money in such tenors should take a serious look of this market.

3 Issuers From the issuers' perspective, funding costs are slightly favourable than offshore markets as most issuers are big banks and corporates which have diverse debt profile extending into the long-end. "Issuers are willing to tailor-make their deals to accommodate the investors' maturity requirements, while investors are happy to take deals which meet their target returns of above 4% annually," according to another banker. For an example, Anheuser-Busch InBev (ABIBB), the largest brewer in the world, announced on January 20 a US$1.47bn 30-year callable Formosa issue with a coupon of 4.915% and an issue price at par. Due January , the issue was handled by Deutsche Bank Taipei. The pricing of that trade was in line with ABIBB's jumbo US$11bn 30-year 4.9% due February , priced at to yield 4.915% in the SEC-registered market on January The major difference is only between the call options. The US$1.47bn trade features annual calls after 5 years but the US$11bn issue can be called only on August Issuers by type (2016 YTD) 20% Corp FI 80% In terms of issuers, ABIBB was the only corporate issuer so far this year, but already accounted for 19.64% of the issuance. The rest 80.36% of the total issuance came from financial institutions. In 2015, financial institutions were responsible for 62.83% of the total with the rest from corporate issuers. Bankers mentioned that investors actually preferred more corporate issuers with single A rating or above to diversify their portfolios away from bank paper. So, top technology names such as Apple would quite likely be warmly welcomed as like in the previous issues Intel and Comcast.

4 Transactions All deals have returns above 4.00% which is the minimum target return of the investors. Ratings of Baa1/BBB or above are preferred. Actually, Asia Pacific ex-japan G3 market saw only US$39.755bn of issuance in January in which US$ Formosa bonds accounted for a substantial share of 18.83%, according to Informa database. The largest deal in 2016 so far is Anheuser-Busch InBev's US$1.47bn issue in January while the historical record is held by AT&T with a US$2.619bn 30-year deal in February 2015, reflecting the depth of the Formosa market. SUMMARY OF USD FORMOSA ISSUES (Nov 1 - Feb 04) ISSUER SIZE (m) CPN/IRR CALL MATURITY RATINGS BOOK(S) SETTLE BNS 150 0%/4.45% NC2/1+ 19-Feb-46 Aa3/A- KGI 19-Feb Natixis 262 0%/4.62% NC2/1+ 17-Feb-46 -/A CUB/SP 17-Feb NBC 300 0%/4.50% NC3/1+ 03-Feb-46 Aa3/A KGI/SP 03-Feb DB 250 0%/4.77& NC5/1+ 03-Feb-46 A2 CUB/DB/MEGA 03-Feb JPM 485 0%/4.60% NC5/1+ 03-Feb-46 A- ESUN/CUB 03-Feb LLOYDS 360 0%/4.60% NC8/1+ 03-Feb-46 A1/A+ ESUN/CUB 03-Feb DBS 100 0%/4.11% NC1/1+ 03-Feb-46 Aa1/AA- SP/TCB 03-Feb DBS 100 0%/4.09% NC2/1+ 03-Feb-46 Aa1/AA- SP/TCB 03-Feb Citi 350 0%/4.82% NC5/1+ 03-Feb-46 Baa1/BBB+ CUB/ESUN/TCB 03-Feb Citi 355 0%/4.85% NC1/1+ 03-Feb-46 Baa1/BBB+ CUB/ESUN/TCB 03-Feb GS 443 0%/5.00% NC1/1+ 03-Feb-46 A3/BBB+ ESUN/CUB/YT+ 03-Feb Maybank 347 0%/4.75% NC5/1+ 03-Feb-46 A3/A- KGI/YT 03-Feb MS 250 0%/4.80% NC4 02-Feb-46 A3/A- YT/CAP 02-Feb BoTM 600 0%/4.37% NC5/5+ 02-Feb-46 A1/A+ MTL/FB/BOT 02-Feb Nomura 135 0%/4.70% NC1/1+ 02-Feb-46 -/BBB+ ESUN/SP 02-Feb DB 103 0%/4.75% NC5/1+ 01-Feb-46 A2 DB/SP 01-Feb RBC Ldn 245 0%/4.23% NC5/5+ 01-Feb-46 Aa3 KGI 01-Feb AB InBev 1, % NC5/1+ 29-Jan-46 A2 DB TPE 29-Jan MS 150 0%/4.75% Bullet 29-Jan-46 A3/A- MASTERLINK 29-Jan Natixis 238 0%/4.63% NC1/1+ 27-Jan-46 -/A CUB/ESUN/SP 27-Jan HSBC 250 0%/4.30% NC5/1+ 25-Jan-46 Aa2/AA- ESUN/HSBC 25-Jan E Sun Bk %/5.1% NC15 Perpetual A3 YT/PRE/HSBC 22-Jan E Sun Bk 240 0%/4.88% NC7/5+ 22-Jan-46 A3 YT/PRE/HSBC 22-Jan Int SP Ir %/4.25% Bullet 15-Jan-28 Baa1/BBB- SINOPAC 15-JAN Intel %/4.7% NC3/1+ 14-Dec-45 Aa3/AA- CUB/YT/MTL 14-Dec Macquarie 120 0%/4.61% NC5/5+ 10-Dec-45 A/A2/A SINOPAC SEC 10-Dec Comcast %/4.6% NC3/1+ 01-Feb-46 A3 MTL/ESUN/SP 09-Dec Vodafone %/5.35% Bullet 03-Dec-45 Baa1/BBB+ KGI Sec 03-Dec DBS 70 0%/4.17% NC1/1+ 13-Nov-45 SINOPAC 13-Nov NBC 75 0%/4.62% NC3/1+ 06-Nov-45 KGI/ESUN 06-Nov NBC 75 0%/4.62% NC3/1+ 06-Nov-45 KGI/ESUN 06-Nov Total US$ for 2015: US$29.051bn; Jan 2016: US$2.651bn; Feb 2016 so far: US$4.835bn

5 League Table Thanks to the chunky ABIBB US$1.470bn deal, Deutsche Bank stood at the top of the Formosa league table year to date. Apart from that, local banks dominated the scene as they have well-established connections with the domestic insurance companies, the major buyers of Formosa bonds. US$ Formosa bonds Rank Bookrunners No. of Deals Amount (US$mn) Outstanding Share 1 DEUTSCHE BANK 3 1, % 2 CATHAY UNITED BANK 8 1, % 3 ESUN BANK 8 1, % 4 KGI SECURITIES % 5 SINOPAC % 6 YUANTA SECURITIES % 7 MASTERLINK SEC % 8 TAIWAN COOP BANK % 9 HSBC % 10 FUBON FIN % 10 BANK OF TAIWAN % 12 PRESIDENT SEC % 13 CAPITAL SEC % 14 RBC CM % 15 MEGA BANK % (Total) 7, % (As of 04 Feb 2016) -- The End -- For comments and questions, please contact our Hong Kong office at below. Nethelie Wong Chief Analyst Tel: (852) nethelie.wong@informagm.com To sign up for a free trial of Informa Global Markets real time services, please contact our Hong Kong office at below. Joe Ng Senior Account Manager Tel: (852) joe.ng@informagm.com

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