CREDIT Suisse Group on Thursday priced its S$750 million perpetual NC5 AT1 issue at 5.625 per cent, which it says is the tightest pricing after strong demand.

At the final price guidance level, total orders stood in excess of S$2.7 billion, Credit Suisse said. It added that strong interest came from both institutional and private banking accounts. 

Of the order book, private banks were allocated 84 per cent, fund managers 10 per cent, banks 4 per cent and insurers 2 per cent.

Geographically, 91 per cent of the demand came from Singapore clients, with the rest of Asia and Europe accounting for 7 per cent and 2 per cent, respectively.  

NC5 means the issuer has the right to call or redeem the bonds in year five. AT1 refers to Additional Tier 1 capital, which is structured with no fixed maturity and has a loss-absorption feature which can be triggered when a crisis occurs.

The notes will be rated "BB-" by S&P and "BB" by Fitch. 

Helman Sitohang, CEO Asia-Pacific at Credit Suisse, said the transaction - its first in the Singapore-dollar bond market - "underscores Credit Suisse's commitment to the Asia-Pacific region, establishes a new source of funding for the bank and diversifies our investor base".

He added: "It also demonstrates our world-class execution capabilities and the unique value proposition of our integrated model which is based on close collaboration between our regional and global investment banking teams and our private bank in delivering capital raising and hedging solutions."

Credit Suisse acted as the sole global coordinator and structuring agent. It was also joint bookrunner alongside DBS Bank, OCBC Bank, Standard Chartered Bank and United Overseas Bank.