12 January 2011 - The Great Eastern Life Assurance Company Limited (“Great Eastern Life”) was today assigned an ‘axAAA’ ASEAN scale rating by Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services (“S&P”), the highest rating on S&P’s ASEAN regional scale. This follows S&P’s assignment of an ‘AA-’ credit rating to Great Eastern Life on 27 December 2010.
Great Eastern Life announced today that it has successfully priced its maiden issue of S$400 million subordinated fixed rate notes (the “Series 001 Notes”), targeted at Asian-based institutional and sophisticated investors. The Series 001 Notes, assigned an ‘A+’ rating by S&P, have a 15-year term but the company has the option to call the Notes at the end of 10 years. The Series 001 Notes are expected to be issued on or about 19 January 2011 and will initially bear interest at the rate of 4.6% per annum, payable half yearly. Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation Limited and Morgan Stanley Asia (Singapore) Pte. are the joint lead managers for the Series 001 Notes.
Mrs Fang Ai Lian, Chairman of Great Eastern Holdings, commented “This is a great start to the new year for us. Standard & Poor’s ratings not only provide formal assurance to the various counterparties and customers with which we have business dealings with but also reflect our strong capacity to meet all our financial commitments. We are delighted that our Series 001 Notes have received overwhelming response. We had targeted to issue S$400 million but received orders for S$1.2 billion, reflecting three times over-subscription. This is a strong vote of confidence by investors and a firm testament to the strength of the Great Eastern name and our position as the most established life insurance company in Singapore and Malaysia.”
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About Great Eastern Great Eastern is the oldest and most established life insurance group in Singapore and Malaysia. With $53.1 billion in assets and 3.8 million policyholders, it has two successful distribution channels - the tied agency force and bancassurance. The Company also operates in China, Indonesia, Vietnam and Brunei. Great Eastern's asset management subsidiary, Lion Global Investors Limited, is one of the largest private sector asset management companies in Southeast Asia.
Great Eastern is a subsidiary of OCBC Bank. Established in 1912, OCBC Bank is the second largest financial services group in Southeast Asia by assets. It is among the world's highest rated banks, with a long term credit rating of Aa1 from Moody's. OCBC Bank's key markets are Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and Greater China. It has a network of 530 branches and representative offices in 15 countries and territories, including 411 branches and offices in Indonesia operated by its subsidiary, Bank OCBC NISP.
