JG Summit Holdings, Inc., the Gokongwei group’s publicly-listed flagship company, successfully raised P9 billion from the local bond market after concluding its maiden peso bond issue.

The JG Summit bonds generated strong demand from both institutional and retail investors, prompting a substantial upsize in the bond issue to P9 billion from the original issue size of P5 billion.

“The strong investor demand for our retail bond once more validated the local market’s confidence in the JG Summit Group,” said JG Summit chairman James Go.

The five-year and one day fixed rate bonds were priced tightly at 8.25 percent per annum, despite a number of competing corporate issuances in the market.

The company announced earlier that it will use the proceeds from the bond issue to support the capital expenditure requirements of its subsidiaries.

The Philippine Ratings Services Corporation (PhilRatings) has assigned the highest credit rating of PRS Aaa on the JG Summit bonds indicating that the debt issue is of the highest quality with minimal credit risk and that the issuer’s capacity to meet its financial obligations is extremely strong.