SingTel debuts in dollars

The highly unusual nature of the entire transaction meant that there was little consensus on the merits of selling the bonds to investors some 25bp cheaper than Cable & Wireless had been allocated them. The UK telecoms group put the bonds out to auction on Monday night, but for the seven bidding banks, pricing was complicated by the fact that the bonds are likely to be extremely illiquid and more importantly, SingTel's credit fundamentals are currently in a state of flux as it absorbs the much weaker C&W Optus.

Merrill Lynch won the deal after bidding aggressively against six other houses comprising, ABN AMRO, DBS Bank, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Salomon Smith Barney and UBS Warburg. Given its close relationship with C&W and its sell-side advisory role in the M&A transaction, its emergence as victor surprised few.