Starting news article english 29 June 2011

Clifford Chance Bank debt buy-backs, a new trend for MENA

Clifford Chance has advised Emirates NBD P.J.S.C. ("ENBD") in relation to its invitation to holders of two tranches of its existing lower Tier II U.S.$500,000,000 Subordinated Step-up Floating Rate Notes due 2016 (the "Existing Notes") to offer to exchange such Existing Notes for U.S.$ Denominated Floating Rate Notes due 2018 (the "New Notes") issued by ENBD (the "Exchange Offer"). The New Notes were issued pursuant to ENBD's existing U.S.$ 7,500,000,000 Euro Medium Term Note Programme on 31 May 2011.

The Exchange Offer enabled ENBD to retire a portion of the Existing Notes which represented surplus Tier II capital in order to improve the efficiency of ENBD's capital structure and optimise ENBD’s liquidity profile by refinancing with senior unsecured funding.

Debashis Dey comments on current regulatory change: "It may be that other banks may follow ENBD's lead and consider buy-backs of regulatory debt in the light of changes coming through Basel III".

The Clifford Chance team was led by partner and Head of Capital Markets Middle East Debashis Dey, and supported by counsel Stuart Ure and associates Xuan Jin and Lauren Djedid in Dubai. EmiratesNBD Capital, HSBC Bank plc and UBS Limited were Dealer Managers on the Exchange Offer, and were represented by the London office of Allen & Overy LLP.