UBS’s hotly-anticipated sale of additional tier 1 bonds, its first since Credit Suisse roiled the market with a historic writedown, pulled in roughly 10 times the bids for the debt on offer.
The Swiss bank sold two dollar-denominated bonds on Wednesday for $3.5 billion (CHF3.15 billion) in total, with combined orders of more than $36 billion, according to people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified because the information is private. A UBS representative confirmed that the bank was selling AT1s but declined to comment further.
At least two investors who suffered losses after the writedown in March of AT1 holdings put in orders for the UBS deal but declined to be identified because they aren’t authorised to speak publicly about the matter.
The stampede to get into the deal marks a complete reversal from March, when roughly $17 billion Credit Suisse’s AT1s were wiped out as part of a UBS takeover brokered by the Swiss government. That triggered the biggest daily loss in the market’s history, and sent yields soaring above 15% for the first time, according to a Bloomberg index. UBS’s offering solidifies the recovery of the asset class, which has seen yields drop by nearly 500 basis points from their peak in March. ...