Re­pub­lic Bank Ltd yes­ter­day said that a $1 bil­lion note that it is­sued on June 6 would strength­en its cap­i­tal base and al­low the bank to achieve its growth strat­e­gy.

Re­spond­ing to ques­tions from Guardian Me­dia by email, a Re­pub­lic Bank spokesper­son said the pro­ceeds of the note are be­ing used for gen­er­al cor­po­rate pur­pos­es.

The bank pub­lished a news­pa­per ad­ver­tise­ment on Thurs­day, ad­vis­ing that it had is­sued the $1 bil­lion ten-year, un­se­cured, sub­or­di­nat­ed, fixed-rate note.

The note will pay in­vestors 5.50 per cent, over its ten-year term, with $1 bil­lion be­ing re­turned to in­vestors by way of a bul­let pay­ment at ma­tu­ri­ty.

The fixed-rate in­vest­ment was of­fered to lo­cal in­sti­tu­tions, ac­cord­ing to the bank’s spokesper­son.

Re­pub­lic Bank said the tim­ing of the is­sue is aimed to co­in­cide with the ex­e­cu­tion/roll-out of the bank’s growth strat­e­gy over the medi­um-term hori­zon.

Re­pub­lic said the ten-year tenor of the note is “aligned to the Bank’s growth strat­e­gy.”

Asked why the note was un­se­cured and sub­or­di­nat­ed, the bank said: “This will al­low the note to qual­i­fy as Tier 2 cap­i­tal for in­clu­sion in the bank’s Cap­i­tal Ad­e­qua­cy Ra­tio, thus strength­en­ing the cap­i­tal base of the Bank to fa­cil­i­tate the as­pi­ra­tional growth un­der our five-year strate­gic plan.

Re­pub­lic Bank Ltd is the T&T-reg­is­tered sub­sidiary of Re­pub­lic Fi­nan­cial Hold­ings Ltd (RFHL), the hold­ing com­pa­ny for the group which op­er­ates in 14 coun­tries across the Caribbean re­gion and in Ghana.

In the first six months of its 2024 fi­nan­cial year, RFHL de­clared $1.13 bil­lion in net prof­it af­ter tax­a­tion. That was a 30.7 per cent in­crease com­pared to the $865 mil­lion the fi­nan­cial hold­ings group earned for the first six months of its 2023 fi­nan­cial year.