National Bank of Abu Dhabi (NBAD) has placed a 30?year senior unsecured Formosa bond with a total nominal value of $885m.

The UK’s HSBC acted as lead manager and book runner, the UK’s Standard Chartered Bank and France’s Crédit Agricole as managers and book runners, with China’s Bank SinoPac as co?manager. France’s Société Générale and NBAD acted as joint structuring agents.

NBAD says the transaction is part of the bank’s ongoing strategy to diversify its funding by accessing new investors in new geographies. It follows NBAD’s inaugural $696m public Formosa bond in October last year, which the first 30 year Formosa bond from the MENA region, which brings the total amount raised by the bank in Taiwan to more than $1.5bn in three months.

NBAD closed the syndication of a $2bn club loan facility in December.

The loan was oversubscribed with commitments of nearly $3bn received in syndication from 14 major international banks across Europe, Asia and the US.

Also in December, the shareholders of First Gulf Bank (FGB) and NBAD approved a proposed merger of the two banks, which will create the largest financial institution in the UAE with assets of approximately AED655bn ($178bn).