Estonian bank Bigbank's public issue of bonds, which ended on November 24, attracted seven times more subscribers than anticipated. The bank therefore increased the base size of its issue from €3 million as planned, to €5 million, BNS, a Baltic newswire, reported on November 27.

A total of 1,847 investors subscribed for Bigbank's subordinated bonds, at a total value of €21.6 million.

According to Martin Lants, chair of Bigbank's management board, the results show that investors have high levels of confidence in the bank's future plans.

"We are really pleased with the strong interest from retail investors, and that is why we gave preference to them in the sub-allocation. With the capital raised, Bigbank will be able to implement its business strategy even more effectively, while at the same time ensuring compliance with the capital requirements," said Lants.

In allocating the subordinated bonds, Bigbank's board of directors decided to aggregate all subscription orders made a single subscriber and to satisfy in full all subscriptions of up to €3,000 made by all investors.

Bigbank offered up to 3,000 unsecured subordinated bonds with a nominal value of €1,000, a maturity date of November 30, 2033 and a fixed interest rate of eight percent per annum, payable quarterly. It also included the right to increase the size of the offer by 7,000 bonds to a total of 10,000 in the event of oversubscription, BNS reported.