Vinge has advised Morgan Stanley & Co. International plc and the other arranging banks consisting of Barclays Bank PLC, Citigroup Global Markets Limited, J.P. Morgan Securities plc and Svenska Handelsbanken AB (publ) in respect of Swedish law in connection with Svenska Handelsbanken’s issue of Additional Tier 1 Contingent Convertible Notes (AT1 CoCo). The issuance amount is USD 1,000 million in two tranches of USD 500 million each, at interest rates of 4.375 and 4.75 per cent respectively.
The loans are perpetual without a final maturity date but the Bank has the option to redeem the loans after 6.5 years (March 2027) and 10.5 years (March 2031), and then subsequently every fifth year. The issuance of AT1 is in the form of debt instruments with automatic conversion to class A-shares, if the Bank’s common equity tier 1 ratio (CET1) falls below a certain level.
The issuance of additional AT1 capital is part of the bank’s capital planning.
The issuance was subscribed by and allotted to the joint lead managers on 6 October 2020 and have been listed on the Global Exchange Market of Euronext Dublin.