Alibaba to price 5-tranche, benchmark dollar bond - term sheet
(updates with revised guidance, comments)
HONG KONG, Nov 29 (Reuters) - Chinese internet giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd has tightened its price guidance for a multi-tranche benchmark dollar bond, according to a term sheet seen by Reuters.
The tranches are for 5.5-, 10-, 20-, 30- and 40-year maturities with price guidance indicated at around 75, 110, 120, 140 and 160 basis points (bps) over U.S. Treasuries respectively.
Pricing is expected to be within a 2 bps range around the revised guidance.
Earlier, the initial price guidance was indicated at around 100, 125-130, 140, 160 and 180 bps respectively.
Investors expect demand to be robust, while Thomson Reuters publication IFR reported orders of nearly $40 billion in what is expected to be a $7 billion offering.
"Alibaba is a fundamentally sound company with a dominant market position and solid positive cash flows," said Alaa Bushehri, portfolio manager for emerging market debt at BNP Paribas Asset Management.
"We expect this issue to do well with interest also coming from global (more specifically U.S.) Investment Grade accounts - this deal is also 144A."
He added that there were technical factors too which would contribute to the issue doing well, since supply of bonds from the technology sector had been relatively slim with just over $10 billion issuance over the last three years.
Morgan Stanley, Citigroup, Credit Suisse , Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan are the bookrunners for the bond, which is rated A1/A+/A+ (Moody's/S&P/Fitch), the same ratings as the issuer.
A benchmark-sized deal for an investment grade issuer means the transaction will raise at least $1 billion.
(Reporting by Umesh Desai; Editing by Shri Navaratnam and Sam Holmes/Mark Heinrich)
