Vista Land raises USD350-M bonds

Vista Land on Monday announced a new seven‐year bond that has a call option starting on the fourth year with an indicative price guidance of around 6.125 percent. (Photo: Vista Land and Lifescapes, Inc./Facebook)

MANILA— Vista Land & Lifescapes, Inc., the listed property developer owned by the Villar family, returned to offshore markets as it successfully raised USD350 million worth of bonds through its wholly-owned subsidiary, VLL International Inc.

Vista Land on Monday announced a new seven‐year bond that has a call option starting on the fourth year with an indicative price guidance of around 6.125 percent.

Strong response from investors enabled Vista Land to further tighten the pricing of the bonds to 5.750 percent, or 37.5 basis points (bps) tighter than their guidance, despite some market volatility. This is the lowest  coupon achieved by the company on the offshore bond markets.

The company told the local bourse the transaction was almost five times oversubscribed after the final orderbook reached USD1.7 billion. It is also the largest size raised by Vista Land on a primary issuance.

There were 121 accounts that participated in the transaction, with 87 percent coming from Asia and 13 percent from Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA).

In terms of investor type, 72 percent were fund managers / asset managers, 16 percent were banks, and private banks and other institutional accounts accounted for the remaining 12 percent.
Vista Land said it would use the proceeds of the issuance primarily for refinancing.

The company announced a liability management exercise for the tender offer of its outstanding USD51.8 million 6.750-percent bonds due 2018, and USD180.8 million 7.450-percent bonds due 2019.

“It also provides us an opportunity to continue diversifying our sources of funding,  ensuring we continue to build key relationships not only with our investors onshore, but also with  investors from Europe and Asia.”  Manuel Paolo Villar, President and Chief Executive Officer of Vista Land.

The new bonds are expected to be issued on Nov. 28.

DBS Bank Ltd. and HSBC were Joint Lead Managers and Bookrunners for the new bonds.