Market participants urge greater transparency and hope for supportive Chinese policies
Sustainable finance continues to develop at pace as politicians and businesses bring forward their net-zero emission target dates. It’s no mean task. Fortunately, the quantity of funds rolling into ESG-leaning asset managers is rising to meet the cost of the transition. But is the market sufficiently mature to efficiently direct funds into the projects and behaviour needed to create the desired outcome?
Environmental, social and governance concerns are competing with geopolitical and macroeconomic issues as major problems to be tackled by governments, corporates and individuals in Asia and around the world. The threat to the environment and public health of global warming ensures that the topic of rebuilding sustainable economies and businesses in a just and inclusive way is a constant theme at the top table of governments, regulators, corporates, banks and investors.
Issuers, bankers and investors ended last year with the certainty that things could only get better in Asia’s bond market. Instead, in the first two months of 2022 they somehow got worse.
India’s debt markets have weathered their fair share of challenges over the past few years. Long before the Coronavirus pandemic began to make its presence felt around the world, India had suffered from a string of defaults in non-banking financial companies, sapping the confidence of the financial sector. The onset of the Covid-19 crisis shattered the already fragile sentiment in the market and wiped out years of India’s hard-won economic expansion.
Welcome to the Refinitiv IFR/DealWatch Roundtable. The spread of the coronavirus has raged around the world, but the large-scale monetary easing and economic measures in each country have helped to mitigate the crisis, and driven activity in the bond market. Investors are also eager to buy, and despite the large number of issues there is still ample demand. According to data from Deals Intelligence, corporate bond issuance in fiscal 2020 in the global market was ¥626.8trn (US$5.5bn), up 18.7%, and in the Japanese market, it was a record high of ¥16.6trn, up 6.9% on the year. As the market size, it is also changing.
IFR’s 2021 German Mittelstand Financing roundtable was convened via video call in October. Covid infection rates were already rising at that point, but the discussion took place before the rising tide of Covid-related government actions and weeks before the new variant was discovered.
The IFR US ECM Roundtable webinar took place on Wednesday November 17, 2021. The webinar, titled “SPACs at a Crossroads” assembled a panel of senior industry professionals to discuss the difficulties SPACs are having in attracting investor capital and the questions this raises over their durability as an asset class. It is now free to view free on demand and you can access it here.
A few years ago, Asian high yield was on the crest of a wave. Junk-rated Chinese property companies could sell US dollar bonds at yields below 5% – hardly high.
The IFR Asia India DCM Roundtable webinar took place on Tuesday November 16 2021. Titled Restarting the Investment Cycle, the event was moderated by IFR’s Asian Credit Correspondent, Krishna Merchant and featured representation from ICICI Bank, ICRA, Moody’s, JSW Steel and Kotac AMC. The webinar is now free to view on-demand. Access it here.
The IFR/DealWatch Japan DCM/ESG Roundtable webinar took place on Tuesday October 19 2021 and brought together an expert panel to discuss the burning topics in the domestic and international bond markets and ask how issuers and investors will navigate around the Bank of Japan’s recent moves. The event was conducted in Japanese with a captioned English translation and is now free to view on-demand. Access it here.
Chinese companies have long dominated Asian offshore issuance, and now the onshore bond market is attracting increasing attention from foreign investors and issuers.
The IFR Asia China Offshore/Onshore Roundtable webcast took place on Tuesday September 14 2021. Moderated by IFR Asia Editor, Daniel Stanton, the event drew together representatives from Moody’s Investors Service, CICC and Barclays to discuss the growth of these markets and talk about the hurdles that need to be overcome as cross-border issuance becomes more common.
The annual IFR Asia High Yield Roundtable took place in virtual format on Tuesday October 12 2021 and saw senior representatives from CICC, Moody’s Investors Service, UBS, Triada Capital and Zhenro Properties Group Ltd come together to discuss the opportunities and risk for Asian high-yield issuance at this turning point in international markets.
Welcome to the IFR Asia/LPC Australia ESG Debt roundtable. The event, held online on August 25, drew interest from around 300 market participants tuning in to the webcast. It brought together representatives from a borrower, a ratings agency, banks and non-bank lenders to discuss the trends and outlook for environmental, social and governance lending in Australia.
The IFR Colombia Capital Markets Roundtable took place on August 5, just as the country’s Congress was considering a tax reform bill expected to bring in Ps15trn (US$4bn) a year into the government’s coffers. The new law, however, was a watered-down version of earlier plans that would have brought in 50% more in tax receipts. Initial plans were met with violent street protests and the resignation of the economy minister. The updated bill targets companies, rather than the consumer, households and individuals that had, at first, been set to bear the burden.
IFR’s 2021 German Corporate Funding video call took place on June 16 with a stellar panel comprising issuers from Volkswagen, Deutsche Bahn, and Bayer; investors from Allianz Investment Management and DWS; and investment bankers from HSBC and Commerzbank.
The IFR Chile Capital Markets Roundtable took place on May 16, a month after the latest wave of Covid took hold in the younger community and the week following the weekend election of members to a constituent assembly charged with writing a new constitution. The results of the election were surprising to financial markets and to the panel themselves. Support for the ruling coalition collapsed, while voters returned a significant proportion of independents sitting on the left of the political spectrum. In the last two years, Chile has also come through the riots of 2019 and the first wave of the pandemic in 2020. The panel met to discuss how Chile fared through the turmoil of recent years and look at what’s in store for the country as it, and the rest of the globe, begins to emerge from a Covid-induced slump into a newer economic, financial and social environment while keeping a wary eye on its own domestic political vagaries.
IFR Asia’s Frontier Debt Capital Markets Roundtable took place at a time of growing interest in frontier credit, as global investors look beyond the Covid-19 pandemic and step up their search for yield.
IFR’s ESG capital markets webinar in May convened a panel of three EU public finance borrowers active in the ESG-labelled debt market: the European Investment Bank; NRW.Bank, the regional promotional agency of Germany’s North Rhine-Westphalia; and SFIL/Caffil, the French local government and export financing agency. Joining them were second-party opinion provider Cicero Shades of Green and asset manager Amundi.
IFR Asia’s 7th annual Green and Sustainable Financing Roundtable took place on April 20, 2021 amid a surge of ESG-related activity in the region’s capital markets.
IFR Asia’s annual Outlook for Asian Credit Roundtable took place against an improving economic backdrop, with the rollout of coronavirus vaccines raising hopes for an end to lockdowns and travel restrictions worldwide.
