이 기사는 2022년 04월 27일 07:40 thebell 에 표출된 기사입니다.

KB Kookmin Card has postponed its bookbuilding to issue an U.S. dollar-denominated bond due to a big plunge in global stock markets and fluctuation of the won-dollar exchange rate.

KB Kookmin Card decided not to launch bookbuilding to sell a dollar bond, according to industry sources on Monday. The card company planned to market its bond to investors in Asia and Europe on Monday and Tuesday.

“We decided not to hold bookbuilding given market conditions,” a KB Koomin Card official said, adding, “We plan to decide whether to proceed with the plan tomorrow after reviewing market conditions.”

The company hired BNP Paribas, Citigroup Global Markets Securities, HSBC, KB Securities and Standard Chartered as joint bookrunners and held its investor call last week.

Yet, market volatility spiked as the Federal Reserve signaled a more hawkish stance in hiking interest rates in recent weeks and on concerns about a possible economic slowdown in China due to a prolonged Covid-19 lockdown. On Monday, the country’s main benchmark Kospi closed down 1.75% and the won closed trading at 1,249.9 per dollar on the onshore settlement platform, marking its lowest level since March 24, 2020.

Mirae Asset Securities canceled its U.S. dollar bond sale last week amid a spike in U.S. Treasury yields following the Federal Reserve’s hawkish comments and concerns over the Ukraine war. It was the first issuer to cancel a public offering of Korean paper this year.

It is unlikely that the securities firm would be able to return to the market with a U.S. dollar bond offering in the first half of the year, observers said. That’s because it normally takes two months to prepare for a foreign currency-denominated bond sale and the firm also has to start over to get permission from the government. (Reporting by Sang-won Lee)