Shizuoka Bank Ltd. joined Japanese national lenders in expanding U.S. dollar finance activity, anticipating monetary easing will crush margins on yen loans.
The nation’s second-biggest regional bank by market value raised $500 million in zero-coupon notes due 2018, the first public sale of dollar-denominated convertible bonds by a Japanese company since 2002. The average interest rate on long-term yen loans from the country’s lenders fell to 0.942 percent in February, compared with 3.348 percent companies worldwide pay on dollar facilities, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
