EastWest Bank plans to raise P30B via series of bond sale

East West Banking Corp. said Friday it plans to raise up to P30 billion through a series of bond issuance spread over the next five years.

EastWest Bank, the commercial banking arm of the Gotianun Group, said it “intends to use the proceeds of the (bond) issuance to support asset growth, diversify funding sources, and re-finance maturing liabilities, as well as for other general funding purposes.”

Meantime, Francis Nathaniel Gotianun resigned effective Friday as a board director of the bank for “personal reasons.” EastWest Bank has yet to name a replacement.

In the first half, the bank doubled its earnings to P3.3 billion as it sustained the momentum of its lending activities. Net revenues were 29 percent higher at P16.3 billion from the improvement in net interest income of 18 percent to P13 billion as EastWest Bank’s consumer lending expansion pushed its core earning capacity back to pre-pandemic levels. 

Total assets at the end of June was at P434 billion, up 4.6 percent from the year-earlier period.