A week after Santander surprised the market with the presentation of the results, the entity now takes advantage of the good financial conditions to obtain resources at attractive prices. After yesterday the bank awarded 500 million Swedish crowns (about 49 million euros) in green debt to partially finance the portfolio of eligible loans, today Santander is trying its luck with the issuance of two tranches of convertible contingent bonds (cocos en la jargon).
In parallel, it studies placing coconuts denominated in dollars with a coupon of 5%
For the reference denominated in euros, Santander has placed 750 million. The bonds will accrue a quarterly coupon of 4.125%, slightly below the 4.5% with which the operation started. Coconuts are a type of perpetual debt with a repayment option after the time established by the entity. In the case of the titles awarded this Thursday, the deadline is seven years. In parallel to these bonds, Santander intends to place coconuts in dollars with a repayment option in the sixth year. The coupon with the part of the operation is 5% payable quarterly.
Coconuts are a type of hybrid emission. In other words, it shares characteristics of debt (pays interest) and capital, since they have the ability to absorb losses. The bonds you are issuing today will be converted into shares only when the CET1 capital ratio falls below 5.125%.
Barclays, BNP Paribas, Citi, Bank of America, JP Morgan, Deutsche Bank, MS and Santander are the underwriter banks in charge of bringing the operation to fruition.
The last time Santander issued coconuts was in January 2020 when it placed 1,500 million to replace the issue of convertible contingent bonds sold in 2014. The coupon achieved with this issue was 4.375%. At the beginning of the year, the emission of coconuts has been very limited. Before Santander, only Abanca (300 million) and Sabadell (500 million) had tried their luck in the market with this type of assets.
