S.Korea Kookmin Bank to sell 400 mln euro MBS

SEOUL, June 10 (Reuters) - Kookmin Bank 060000.KS, the top South Korean retail lender, said on Tuesday it sell issue floating-rate residential mortgage backed securities (RMBS) to raise 400 million euros ($623.1 million) on Thursday.

The bond will be sold to an unidentified European institution in a private placement at a rate of 110 basis points above the Euribor, carrying a weighted average life of three years, the bank said in a statement.

The paper can be redeemable before its 30-year maturity because holders can require prepayment, a Kookmin official added. The underlying assets would be mortgages in South Korea.

Kookmin Bank, the country's biggest mortgage bank, said the issuance, managed by ING Bank, would be its first RMBS sale.

It has been seeking to diversify financing sources and save funding costs, amid difficulty in international funding markets in the wake of the U.S. subprime crisis.

(Reporting by Kim Yeon-hee; Editing by Kim Coghill)