Dominet Bank's bond issue breaks new ground

Dominet Bank (Poland) has received the green light from the Banking Supervision Commission (KNB) to credit a bond issue to its own funds. As a result the bank has gone ahead with the first tranche of the issue worth zł.30 million, which has increased its capital to more than zł.103 million and its solvency ratio to 12.4%. "The bond issue program was organized by BRE Bank. This is the first time on the market that such a transaction was executed between two unrelated entities where a bank was the issuer. KNB has also allowed free trading of these bonds," said Agnieszka Czuba, the director of the financial markets department at BRE. The whole value of the issue is to amount to zł.80 million. The next tranche is planned for mid 2005. According to regulations, capital obtained in such a way cannot exceed 50% of basic funds, therefore part of the stake will be aimed at the main shareholders, namely Dominet and Merrill Lynch.