NRW Benchmark Bond No. 6 Priced
The State of North Rhine-Westphalia´s € 2 billion benchmark bond No. 6 has now been priced. The five-year issue, due on October 30, 2008, carries a coupon of 3.5%. The issue/fixed reoffer price is 98.879%, yielding a spread of 15.7 basis points over the Bobl 143. Joint lead managers are HSBC, Merrill Lynch and WestLB. Co-lead managers are Barclays, BNPP, Citigroup, Commerzbank, Deutsche Bank, DrKW, HVB, Morgan Stanley, Nomura and UBS. Payment date is October 30th. The issue is available in denominations of € 1,000. Listing will be on the Düsseldorf and Frankfurt Stock Exchanges. Additionally to the usual market-making commitment, all managing banks will act as market makers for the issue on the German MTS as well as in the repo market. NRW is rated Aa1 (neg. outlook)/AA+/AAA, FSA/IPMA stabilisation.