Westpac Banking Corp's (WBK) $3.5B Entitlement Offer Prices at $25.50/Share

Westpac Banking Corporation (NYSE: WBK) today announced it was undertaking a fully underwritten, pro rata accelerated renounceable entitlement offer (“Entitlement Offer”) to raise approximately $3.5 billion of ordinary equity. The price of the offer has been set at $25.50 per ordinary share. In order to be eligible to participate in the offering, a shareholder, other than certain qualified institutional investors, must be resident in Australia or New Zealand.

The equity raised will add approximately 100 basis points to Westpac’s Common equity tier 1 (“CET1”) capital ratio and places Westpac’s CET1 capital ratio.

Westpac is raising additional capital in response to changes in mortgage risk weights that will increase the amount of capital required to be held against mortgages by more than 50%, with the increased regulatory requirement to be applied from 1 July 2016. As a result, Westpac has also announced an increase in its variable home loan (owner occupied) and residential investment property loan rates by 20 basis points.

Westpac also announced its unaudited preliminary Full Year 2015 Result. See Exhibit 1 attached hereto.

Holders of Westpac American Depositary Receipts (“ADRs”) are not eligible to participate in the Entitlement Offer, but may be entitled to a cash distribution from the sale of the entitlements relating to the ordinary shares underlying the ADRs. Westpac expects that the ADR depositary will notify holders of the record date for any such distribution in due course. The ADR program will be closed to issuance and deposits, until such record date.

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