A $100 million seven-year legal final wrapped deal originated by Brazil's Unibanco is seen pricing within the next two weeks, according to sources. Barclays Capital and Nomura Securities are reportedly jointly leading the transaction, which is backed by diversified payment rights. Standard & Poor's and Fitch Ratings have released ratings of triple-A, thanks to the surety, courtesy of MBIA. The average life is 5.1 years.
In early July, the bank redeemed a $112 million outstanding of an $120 million DPR issue that closed in June 2003 via Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein. The unwrapped floating-rate transaction priced at 425 basis points over three-month Libor. Moody's Investors Service, S&P and Fitch rated it Baa1/BBB-/BBB, respectively is scheduled to mature in 2009. Talk is that the all-in cost of the upcoming wrapped transaction might have proved cheaper than the naked DPR transaction last year.
Apart from the retired deal, Unibanco has issued approximately $933 million (equivalent) off a DPR program. That includes a ¥25 billion bond that marked the first time a DPR deal was placed in a currency other than the greenback-denominated collateral.
