Abu Dhabi – Mubasher: First Gulf Bank (FGB) said on Wednesday that it received an expected senior unsecured rating of F1 (EXP) from Fitch Ratings as well as a provisional (P) Prime-1 (P1) short-term local and foreign currency rating from Moody’s Investors Service for its new $3 billion Euro-commercial paper (ECP) programme.
Fitch Ratings also assigned an A+/F1 rating to FGB’s existing $1 billion negotiable certificate of deposit (NCD) programme, the bank said in a statement.
The ECP programme aims to diversify the sources of funding as per the bank’s strategy by increasing liquidity and helping the managing of FGB’s short-term liability profile, said Christopher Wilmot, head of treasury and global markets at FGB.
“The funding we will receive from this programme will be used for general corporate purposes,” he added, noting that the ECP programme will also provide access to a different pool of investors.
“The bank’s ECP issuance will have an original tenor up to one year, while the NCD issuance has an original maturity greater than seven days. The debt instruments will be issued to institutional investors, namely asset managers, across Asia, Europe and the Middle East. They can also be denominated in most currencies with USD, Euro and GBP having the deepest liquidity,” FGB said in its statement.
