이 기사는 2022년 03월 31일 08:07 thebell 에 표출된 기사입니다.

South Korea’s Samsung C&T, the construction unit of Samsung Group, attracted strong demand for its maiden ESG (environmental, social and governance) bond offering amid worries over sharper interest rate hikes.

Samsung C&T attracted 840 billion won ($694 million) of orders in a bookbuilding process to raise a combined 300 billion won on Tuesday, according to industry sources. Most of major domestic investors including National Pension Service and Korea Post participated in the bookbuilding process.

Samsung C&T drew orders worth 600 billion won for a 200 billion won 3-year bond issue and 240 billion won for a 100 billion won 5–year bond issue.

The bond sale attracted very strong response from investors amid depressed corporate bond market after U.S. Federal Reserve officials' hint of a more aggressive hike of the benchmark interest rate.

The latest offering is meaningful in that it proved investors’ strong interest in ESG bonds. The 3-year ESG bonds attracted 600 billion won of orders, three times its offering.

Thanks to positive response, the 3-year bond has been priced at 5 basis points (bps) higher than its average yield and the 5-year bond at 25 bps higher than its average yield. Samsung C&T proposed yields ranging from minus 20 to plus 20 bps of an average yield for the 3-year bond and from minus 30 to plus 30 bps of an average yield for the 5-year bond.

The company is considering whether to scale up the offering to up to 500 billion won, comprising 300 billion won for the 3-year bond and 200 billion won for the 5-year bond. The bonds will be issued on April 5. (Reporting by Yoon-shin Choi)