CBA to sell 40 bln yen in retail Samurai bonds

TOKYO, April 8 (Reuters) - Commonwealth Bank of Australia Ltd (CBA.AX), Australia's second-biggest lender, will sell 40 billion yen ($391 million) of three-year Samurai bonds to retail investors, Nikko Citigroup said on Tuesday.

It will be the first retail Samurai offered since GMAC, an affiliate of U.S. automaker General Motors Corp (GM.N), issued such a bond in December 2003.

Separately, CBA sold 107.1 billion yen of five-year Samurai bonds to institutional investors on Tuesday.

CBA's retail Samurai bond has a 1.68 percent coupon, set 73 basis points above yen interest rate swaps.

The bond will be issued on April 28 and mature on April 28, 2011. The sales period runs from April 9 through April 25.

CBA is rated Aa1 by Moody's Investors Service, and AA by Standard & Poor's and Fitch.

Samurai bonds are yen bonds issued in Japan by non-Japanese entities. (Reporting by Takefumi Ito and Naoyuki Katayama; writing by Rika Otsuka)