Fifth Third Offers $1.3B in Debt, Completes Buyback

Fifth Third Bancorp (FITB) is expanding its capacity to take on debt and has wrapped up a $100 million stock buyback.

The Cincinnati company has offered $1.3 billion in senior notes, with terms of three and five years, it said in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday. Fifth Third also said that it has completed the buyback announced in December; it bought nearly 6.4 million shares at an average price of $15.63.

Fifth Third's shares closed Friday at $15.83, down 2 cents.

It has another $125 million buyback that is ongoing, which it announced in January.

Fifth Third raised its capacity to issue senior unsecured debt under its global notes program to $25 billion from $20 billion. After the current $1.3 billion sale, the bank will have issued $2.3 billion in outstanding notes under this program.

The bank is selling five-year notes at 1.45%, three-year notes at 0.90% and three-year floating notes at Libor plus 41 basis points.

The news was first reported in the Cincinnati Business Courier.