Cleary Gottlieb represented Crédit Agricole S.A. in a $1.5 billion Rule 144A/Reg. S offering of deeply subordinated notes constituting Tier 1 capital, as well as in a simultaneous $3.25 billion Rule 144A/Reg. S offering in two tranches of senior unsecured floating rate notes. Calyon Securities (USA) Inc., Citigroup Global Markets Inc. and Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Incorporated acted as joint book-running managers for both offerings. The offerings closed on May 31.
Tier 1 transactions involve issuing securities with debt-like features, which are counted as core capital under regulations requiring banks to maintain minimum capital levels as a percentage of their risk-adjusted assets.
Crédit Agricole is the lead bank of the Crédit Agricole Group, France’s largest banking group and one of the largest in the world. The offerings are Crédit Agricole’s first issuance of medium- and long-term debt in the U.S. markets.