Taiwan’s Far Eastern International Bank last night joined the growing number of issuers accessing the convertible bond market when it raised $150 million from a zero-coupon deal. This was another aggressively priced deal and, in fact, the first one this year to price away from the cheap end.
The fact that the issuer is based in Taiwan and the deal therefore came with plenty of asset swaps clearly helped in terms of the pricing, but the fact that the CB has a BBB- rating from Fitch and the backing of the Far Eastern group also boosted the interest from outright investors. On top of that, the deal offered exposure...