Bank of Ireland raises 750 mln euros with inaugural CoCo

DUBLIN, June 11 (Reuters) - Bank of Ireland (Other OTC: IRLD - news) raised 750 million euros from the sale of high-risk CoCo bonds on Thursday in a deal that was seven-times oversubscribed, the bank said.

The bonds were sold at a yield of 7.375 percent, with more than 5 billion euros worth of orders, Bank of Ireland said in a statement.

Contingent convertible bonds or "CoCos" are hybrid securities that count as Tier 1 capital under the Basel III international banking regulations.

They behave like bonds but can be written off or converted into ordinary shares if regulators declare a bank's capital has fallen too low, potentially wiping out CoCo holders in the process.

Permanent TSB (Berlin: IL0A.BE - news) is the only other Irish bank to have issued CoCo bonds. It placed 125 million euros with a small group of investors in April, offering a coupon of 8.625 percent. (Reporting by Alice Gledhill and Conor Humphries; editing by David Clarke)