DUBAI: Bahrain's retail lender BBK plans to meet investors starting this Thursday and may issue a $500 million bond if market conditions are suitable, its chief executive said on Tuesday. "If we see the market strong enough (during the road-show) we may issue a bond," Abdulkarim Bucheery told Reuters over the phone. "If we are to issue it would most probably be a benchmark-sized issue," he added. Benchmark-sized bonds are typically around $500 million. Bankers from two of the arranging banks said earlier on Tuesday that BBK has appointed HSBC, Deutsche Bank and Citigroup to arrange the meetings, to be held in Asia and Europe. IFR, a Thomson Reuters subsidiary, reported on Monday that BBK could go for a potential US dollar Reg S Eurobond under the bank's existing Euro Medium Term Notes (EMTN) program. The government of Bahrain owns 32 percent of BBK and Ithmaar Bank has a 25 percent stake according to Reuters data. Gulf Arab debt markets have in recent weeks slowly started to recover from Dubai's debt woes with some bonds issued by sovereign entities and Saudi-based banks. More financial institutions in the region are expected to come to the market to refinance their debt.
