Luminor has successfully completed a €300m bond issue. In addition, the bank has repurchased €250m of existing bonds due in 2021. The transactions, which were completed on 3rd December, further improve Luminor’s funding efficiency and lower Luminor’s cost of funds.
Olof Sundblad, Luminor’s Head of Treasury and acting CFO, commented, “We have taken an important step to meet our future regulatory requirements, while also enhancing our liability structure and deepening our investor base. These transactions ensure that Luminor is well placed for future growth.”
Luminor held a series of virtual meetings with European investors on 23rd and 24th November, and launched its new issue following positive feedback and interest amongst investors who wished to tender their holdings of Luminor’s existing 1.5% security due in 2021.
The transaction was significantly oversubscribed with Luminor securing orders in excess of €1bn from over 100 investors located across 20 countries. The size, quality and diversity of the orders enabled Luminor to price the new security with a coupon of 0.792%. Orders from Baltic investors accounted for a fifth of the total book and we also saw good demand from investors in the UK, German-speaking Europe and Nordic countries.
The bond, which is rated Baa2 by Moody’s, is listed on the Irish Stock Exchange and was issued under Luminor’s EMTN programme. Luminor Markets acted as a joint lead manager for both transactions.
Luminor is the third-largest provider of financial services in the Baltics, providing banking and financial services to help individuals, companies and institutions grow in its home markets of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Luminor has some 900,000 clients, 2,355 employees, and a market share of 16.3% in deposits and 17.4% in lending as at the end of September 2020. Luminor has total shareholders’ equity of 1.6 billion EUR and it is well-capitalised with a CET1 ratio of 22.0%.
