NIB launches three-year GBP 600 million benchmark

On 13 January, NIB priced its first benchmark transaction of the year – a GBP 600 million 3.875% bond due February 2026. Despite traditionally slow Friday markets, the transaction enjoyed a strong reception with orderbooks closing over GBP 925 million, allowing the Bank to price the trade at 75bp over mid-Gilts.

“The GBP market offers exceptional good liquidity early in the year; therefore we were keen to take advantage of investor interest. Choosing a quieter Friday and a bit of positive backdrop from the very volatile UK gilt market proved to be the right combination – the orderbook was amongst the largest for NIB’s British Pound transactions. There is a fair amount of UK based investors that only buy our GBP issues, so this is also an important transaction in terms of diversifying our investor base”, says NIB’s Head of Funding and Investor Relations Jens Hellerup.

“The funding team was eager to secure an issuance window for British Pounds in the usually very busy start to the year. This window was well chosen – the amount of GBP 600 million exceeded our initial expectations and the pricing worked well for both investors and NIB. This successful transaction is the first larger public bond outing in what I expect to be a busy first quarter of the year,“ comments Kim Skov Jensen, NIB’s Vice President & CFO.

The transaction was well distributed geographically, with UK investors taking 54%, 25% going to Asia and 21% to EMEA (excl. UK) accounts. In terms of investor type, Central Banks and Official Institutions had 50% of final allocations, Banks took 32%, Asset Managers had 15% and the remaining 3% went to Insurance & Pension Funds.

The Bank of America, Nomura and the Royal Bank of Canada were joint lead managers for the transaction.

Bond summary terms
Issuer:	Nordic Investment Bank
Rating:	Aaa / AAA by Moody’s / S&P
Issue amount:	GBP 600 million
Coupon:	3.875%, Annual
Launch date:	13 January 2023
Payment date:	20 January 2023
Maturity date:	19 February 2026
Re-offer price:	99.838%
Re-offer yield:	3.896% s.a. / 3.934% a.
Listing:	London Stock Exchange
Joint lead managers:	BofA, Nomura, RBC
ISIN:	XS2578472412

NIB is an international financial institution owned by eight member countries: Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway and Sweden. The Bank finances private and public projects in and outside the member countries. NIB has the highest possible credit rating, AAA/Aaa, with the leading rating agencies Standard & Poor’s and Moody’s.

For further information, please contact:
Jens Hellerup, Senior Director, Head of Funding and Investor Relations,
at +358 961 811 401, jens.hellerup@nib.int 
Angela Brusas, Director, Funding and Investor Relations, at +358 961 811 403, angela.brusas@nib.int
Alexander Ruf, Director, Funding and Investor Relations, at +358 961 811 402, alexander.ruf@nib.int