ANZ Bank refines price guidance on Samurai bond

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TOKYO, March 4 (Reuters) - Australia & New Zealand Banking
Group Ltd (ANZ.AX), Australia's third-biggest lender, has
refined the price guidance of its Samurai bond debut, a market
source said on Tuesday.

Samurais are yen bonds issued in Japan by non-Japanese
entities.

Preliminary pricing of the three-year fixed rate bond is 78
to 85 basis points (bps) over swap.

Preliminary pricing of the five-year fixed and floating
rate tranches is 88 to 95 bps over swap and Yen Libor. Pricing
is expected this week, possibly as early as Wednesday.

The offer size is at least 40 billion yen ($387 million).

Daiwa, Mizuho and Nikko Citigroup are lead managing the
planned offer.

The Samurai market has been an increasingly popular source
of funds for Australian banks, as a means of diversification
and due to Japanese investors' willingness to lend. In less
than a year, three major Australian banks have visited the
Samurai bond market, sometimes twice, raising a combined 277
billion yen.

Japanese investors are keen to buy such bonds because of
the higher yields they offer compared with Japanese government
bonds and because investors see little risk of big foreign
banks defaulting.

ANZ is rated AA by S&P and Aa1 by Moody's.
($1=103.4 yen)
(Reporting by Takefumi Ito and Naoyuki Katayama, writing by
Cecile Lefort)