CSL (Commonwealth Serum Laboratories), the Melbourne based vaccine manufacture, got a massive outcome for the U.S. dollar market. The company made an inaugural $4bn six-part of 144A/Reg S print. It was via joint bookrunners; Citigroup, HSBC, Bank of America and JP Morgan. CSL is Australia’s third-largest market capitalization. The first and the second respectively are BHP Billiton and Commonwealth Bank of Australia. The company is the world’s largest protein-based biotechnology company manufacturing vaccines.
Investors see this as an attractive credit transaction spot. They combined an order book of $22bn with fellow biotech giant Amgen rated Baa1/A-(Moody’s/S&P). Ian Campbell, a head of sustainability and corporate transitions for Citigroup said that it is the best CSL result. The company can manage the investors well.
Therefore, they can benefit from the good M&A record and high rating although the market is volatile. Before, CSL raised U.S. dollars in the private placement market. It happened when the multi-tranche deals escalated up to $1bn. The bookrunners see the new deal is interesting for the scalable demand.
CSL’s debut finally attracted massive offshore issuance by Australian corporates. It follows a $1.5bn dual-tranche eight and 10-year deal from Fortescue Mining Group. The rate is Ba1/BB+. Then the $700m of 10-year sale by metals and mining company South23, is with the rating of Ba1/BBB+.
However, following the two largest deals, the Australian domestic corporate market remains shallow, said IFR Asia.The funds raised by CSL would finance the proposed Swiss drugmaker Vicor Pharma partially as much as $14.7bn. In December last year CSL raised A$6.4bn from a share to support the company’s acquisition. It was the biggest primary equity raising.
