On Thursday 2 April 2020, the Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ) announced a Term Lending Facility (TLF) to help support its local banking system.
As part of this, and other recent packages, the RBNZ has agreed with local banks that during the current period of economic uncertainty, that there will be no payment of dividends on ordinary shares and that they should not redeem non-CET1 capital instruments.
No timeframe of the length of the above restrictions was formally given, only that they may be revised when the economic outlook has sufficiently recovered.
ANZ noted the announcement and confirmed that it will prevent it from redeeming its NZ$500 million Capital Notes on 25 May 2020, but that it is able to continue to make interest payments on them.
ANZ also took the opportunity to remind the market and investors that the terms of the Capital Notes also provide for their conversion into a variable number of ordinary shares in May 2020 or May 2022. Conversion would result in an equivalent increase in ANZ's CET1 capital of ~12 basis points on a Level 2 basis.
Further information will be made available by ANZ to holders of the Capital Notes in the near future.
