JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) sold $13bn worth of bonds on Thursday, the largest ever bond issuance by a bank. JPM capitalized on its best ever quarter with strong Q1 earnings released a day prior and the current low interest rate environment to beef up its balance sheet. Four of the five tranches have a fixed-to-floating coupon with the other tranche being a floater. Details of the issuance are as follows:
JPMorgan is the sole bookrunner of the sale. Proceeds will be used for general corporate purposes. While JPM is rated A-/A2/AA-, the new bonds are unrated. With this issuance, JPM has raised a total of $22bn in the US investment grade bond market this year, which is more than any other major US bank. “Banks are always going to be hefty issuers, which lends a certain opportunism to tapping the markets especially when funding is still so cheap”, Jesse Rosenthal, senior analyst at CreditSights said. JP Morgan USD bonds were slightly up. Its 4% Perp was up 0.35 to 100.371, yielding 3.9%.
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