Volkswagen AG has issued another €2 billion of corporate bonds as it continues to
This time, the bonds were issued via Volkswagen Bank GmbH, marking the first offering from this captive finance subsidiary since August 2014. The offering, which is expected to be rated BBB+ by Standard & Poor’s and A3 by Moody’s Investors Service. It comes after Volkswagen Leasing GmbH, another subsidiary of the German automaker, issued public bonds totaling €5.75 billion in June and September.
The latest offering consists of €750 million of 3.5 year notes, €750 million of 5.5 year notes, and €500 million of 8 year notes.
In a press release Thursday, Volkswagen said that the deal generated an investor interest of more than €7 billion, making it more than three times oversubscribed. Asset managers represented the largest group of investors with a share of around 80%.
The issuance was placed predominantly in Europe: About a third of investors came from Great Britain and Ireland, about 30% of investors came from Germany and Austria and about 17% came from French investors.
“We have used the current optimal market conditions and we therefore are able to offer attractive financing conditions to our customers,” Bernd Bode, head of group treasury and investor relations at Volkswagen Bank, said in the press release. “The successful issuance demonstrates not only our good positioning in the capital markets but also that we have convinced the investors of the strength of the new organizational set-up of Volkswagen Financial Services.”
Volkswagen was compelled to shift its funding strategy last year in the wake of an emissions cheating scandal. It stepped up issuance of asset-backeds, which were less impacted by the fallout than the company’s stocks and unsecured debt. Now that investor confidence has been restored, Volkswagen is returning to its traditional funding pattern.
The company's most recent trip to the asset-backed market was in October, when it securitized €1.25 billion of
