When times are good, it takes little in the way of ingenuity to navigate around the sector. But when the environment becomes more challenging, be it for reasons that are economic, regulatory or whatever, that is when inventiveness and lateral thinking are thrust to the fore. While the US dollar investment-grade market was a classic example of the former, its record-breaking run during the first half of the year was abruptly disrupted by volatility engendered by concerns surrounding China. The sp

Emerging market corporate debt has not made for a pretty picture so far this year. Bond sales totalled US$217.79bn in the first six months of 2015, a wince-making 34% drop from the US$327.62bn printed over the same period last year and the weakest first-half performance since 2011, according to Thomson Reuters data. But the outlook does not get any better looking forward; and it is telling that no bankers are prepared to make any kind of a guess as to what kind of annual volumes we could be look

Bank bond issuers across Europe have faced a tougher task than usual to persuade investors to buy their paper in recent months as countries have imposed their own interpretations of the European Union’s bank recovery and resolution directive. This major piece of post-crisis regulation is essentially designed to ensure that, if a bank needs to be rescued, private investors in its equity and debt will first be hit, by being wiped out or bailed in, before any public money from taxpayers is put at r

At first glance, much would appear to be stacked up against fixed income fund managers. The list of obstacles to overcome in order to satisfy the kind of returns demanded from internal performance mandates is long and varied. Short-term lending rates in the major currencies are next to zero, safe government bond yields are not much higher and the benefits of taking on additional credit risk is, at least in investment-grade bonds, minimal. In addition, the interest rate market is effectively at –

There was a record €90bn of euro-denominated debt issued by US corporates during the first nine months of 2015, propelled by jumbo deals from the likes of Coca-Cola, which took home €8.5bn in the biggest ever foreign offering by a US company, General Electric and McDonald’s. The tally beat the previous high of €83bn that printed in the same period in 2014, according to Thomson Reuters. Supply was front-loaded in a frenetic first half, during which yield-hungry European investors lapped up the ex

It was never the European Central Bank’s intention, when it announced its quantitative easing programme in January, to disrupt markets or skew issuance in any particular direction. “That is why it didnt get involved in primary issuance in the SSA market and set a 25% limit on any one transaction – though that was later lifted to 33%,” said Greg Arkus, head of SSA DCM at Credit Suisse. The ECB is careful to avoid leaving itself open to the accusation of being politically motivated, which direct p

Secondary corporate bond markets are on the cusp of the biggest upheaval in their history, as slashed dealer balance-sheet capacity spells the end of the traditional principal-based model. With 30-plus providers vying for a role in the new electronic infrastructure that aims to address the liquidity dearth, the market is ripe for change. But any shift towards an equity-like exchange trading model is proving slow to materialise. New capital and leverage rules under Basel III mean that holding bon

A burst of financing to support mergers and acquisitions has pushed US high-grade issuance to a fresh record but, since the summer, unbridled volatility has tested the dollar market’s famed resilience. US investment-grade debt volumes increased 12.2% compared to the first nine months of 2014 and ranked as the largest first three quarters on record, according to Thomson Reuters data. The US$983.3bn raised from 729 issues surpassed the US$876.2bn during the same period of 2014, as issuers continue