Trafigura Securitisation Finance Plc said it has successfully issued a new series of notes (“TSF 2018-1”) on the 144A/RegS Asset-Backed Securities (“ABS”) markets.
TSF is the securitisation vehicle of the Trafigura Group Pte Ltd.
This is Trafigura’s fifth public ABS transaction since the inception of the programme in November 2004. TSF has since become the largest AAA/Aaa publicly rated securitisation programme of trade receivables in the world.
It offers investors a rare access to a blended portfolio of short term credit exposure on oil majors, non-ferrous metals and minerals purchasers and highly rated banks.
The offering was significantly oversubscribed. A total of USD500 million of public notes (3Y tenor) were placed with US and European investors including: USD185m floating rate Class A1 notes (AAA/Aaa) at 1m Libor +73bps, USD280 million fixed rate notes Class A2 (AAA/Aaa) Notes at mid-swap +73bps and USD35 million fixed rate B notes (BBB/Baa2) at mid-swap + 130bps.
The transaction was very well received, with distribution in the US and Europe and a total of 32 unique orders from institutional investors. The transaction was officially announced on Monday 17th September and achieved oversubscription on both the Class A and B notes (Class A: 1.35x, Class B: 2.31x). The transaction was tested at levels tighter than guidance on both the Class A and Class B and successfully priced and upsized on Wednesday 19th September.
Laurent Christophe, Trafigura’s Head of Corporate Finance, said: “With this new public issuance, we are demonstrating once again our strong and enduring commitment to the ABS markets since we closed our first issuance in the public markets in 2007. The TSF 2018-1 series is the 5th issuance out of our TSF programme and comes just one year after our last transaction in June 2017. This shorter issuance frequency should bring deeper secondary market liquidity and benefit investors. We are very pleased with the breadth and depth of interest that we received from institutional investors. It highlights the “Gold standard” that the TSF programme commands in this asset class which has been supported by the strong performance of the underlying collateral and our ability to continuously maintain AAA/Aaa credit ratings over a 14-year period. This unique non-recourse financing programme gives Trafigura a competitive edge in the commodity trading sector where access to diversified liquidity sources is becoming more strategic than ever.”
Société Générale, Citi and SMBC acted as Joint Lead Managers whilst Credit Suisse, Natixis and MUFG were co-managers on the transaction.
