Handelsbanken to join Nordic Samurai series as Pohjola moves forward

Svenska Handelsbanken is set to become the third Nordic issuer to tap the Samurai market within the space of a month, with soft marketing for the Swedish bank’s debut, senior unsecured issue expected to start tomorrow (Friday).

Its move comes after Nordea sold a ¥91.2bn (Eu693m, Skr5.96bn) four tranche senior unsecured deal on 29 May and as Finland’s Pohjola Bank is selling its debut Samurai.

Handelsbanken filed documentation for the Japanese transaction on Monday after deciding to go ahead last Friday, with five tranches possible: three and five year fixed and floating rate tranches as well as a 10 year fixed rate piece.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Mitsubishi UFJ Morgan Stanley, Mizuho and Nomura are managing the issue and a banker involved in the Handelsbanken deal said that the potential tranches afford them some flexibility to respond to investor demand.

“There is quite a lot of volatility in the Japanese market,” he said, “so quite a few investors are a little bit cautious. They will probably wait until the last minute to commit.”

Pohjola’s Samurai is in the middle of being marketed by Daiwa, Nomura and SMBC Nikko, and a banker at one of the leads said that indications have been “pretty solid” so far, especially given the market backdrop.

With its recent deal, Nordea positioned itself as the tightest European FIG credit in the Samurai market, leapfrogging the Netherlands’ Rabobank. The banker involved in Handelsbanken’s deal said that they will be targeting pricing inside Nordea and Rabobank, given that it trades tighter than these two in other markets. However, he acknowledged that this could be “somewhat of a challenge” given that it was only recently that Nordea in turn had managed to position itself inside Rabobank.

Svenska Handelsbanken head of treasury Bengt Edholm told Nordic FIs & Covered last August that the bank was looking at establishing itself in the Samurai market.