To view the digital version of this report, please <a href="http://edition.pagesuite-professional.co.uk/Launch.aspx?EID=8a94f109-f864-4c2c-8df6-b3482638a2b9" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" onkeypress="window.open(this.href);return false;">click here</a>. It has been a year that has seen the headlines dominated by a sovereign debt crisis in Europe. This time last year, the carnage that would be wrought by cripplingly high debt in Greece, P

To view the digital version of this report, please click here. The IFR Top 250 Borrowers ranking includes all Thomson Reuters league table-eligible borrowings in syndicated loans, international bonds, convertible bonds and securitisations for the period May 1 2010 to April 30 2011. The rankings reflect the activity of borrowers at the parent level. In recent years majority-owned subsidiaries that borrow in their own names were given separate entries of their own but this is no longer the case, d

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To view the digital version of this report, please click here. The devastating March 11 earthquake in Japan – the country’s strongest on record – shook the yen capital markets to the core. As a result, the yen credit market closed about 10 trading days earlier than the usual fiscal year-end finish in April. Corporate spreads took the biggest hit. Yen-denominated international paper generally also widened, although not so dramatically, with investors understanding underlying credit quality had no

To view the digital version of this report, please click here. Macquarie’s considerable flexibility in meeting its refinancing requirements and repaying its debt via benchmark corporate-bond issues makes it a leading Asia Pacific-based borrower. Its banking subsidiary’s well-known dependence on non-deposit sources of funding has been a critical component of its survival and its investment-grade credit profile. But the creative strategies employed by several of its subsidiaries and related entiti

To view the digital version of this report, please click here. Indian bond markets are feeling the pressure from central bank hawks. Acting most recently in May with a 50bp hike, the RBI has increased its repo rate by four percentage points over the past 12 months in a protracted battle to contain persistent headline inflation. The yield on the benchmark 10-year Indian government bond is nearly 100bp higher now than it was 12 months ago, rising to an annual high of around 8.4%. Consistently high

To view the digital version of this report, please click here. On 6 April, the United Mexican States received such a favourable reaction from investors to a re-opening of its 2040s that it decided to raise US$1.01bn instead of the US$500m it had initially targeted. The issue was heavily over-subscribed and the book reached US$4.8bn, pricing at 101.358 to yield 5.95% or 134.6bp more than US Treasuries with a similar maturity. “There are two main reasons why the April deal was able to achieve such

To view the digital version of this report, please click here. Poland’s capital markets activity was heavily influenced by southern European economic woes last year, which had a profound effect on spreads for both southern and Central and Eastern European Eurobonds. With these problems in mind it focused its capital raising efforts on the US dollar markets, along with some domestic debt issuance. However, the sovereign did take advantage of a yield trough last autumn to launch a euro deal. It ca

To view the digital version of this report, please click here. When PPL went to the sterling bond market to take out the remainder of a £3.6bn bridge facility in May this year, company executives expected demand for the two-part financing to be strong. Investors had gotten to know PPL well in the year leading up to its first UK trade. PPL had recently made two enterprise-defining acquisitions that needed financing. The debt capital markets, generally starved for M&A-backed paper, were more t

To view the digital version of this report, please click here. A strengthening global economy at the beginning of 2011 fueled expectations of consolidation among semiconductor manufacturers. Acquisitions and rationalisation of capacity seemed to be the obvious answer to high fixed operational costs and deep cyclicality inherent to the industry. In April, Texas Instruments, agreed to acquire National Semiconductor for US$6.5bn in cash. This was quickly followed in May by Applied Materials’ propos

To view the digital version of this report, please click here. In the summer of 2010 BP overcame the seemingly insurmountable obstacle presented by the worst-ever US oil spill to raise US$4.75bn in the loan market, with four banks coming together to underwrite two loans covering the sum. The financing, non-recourse to BP and linked to the company’s operations in Angola and Azerbaijan, enabled the borrower to demonstrate to the markets that it had full access to liquidity. In July 2010, with BP’s

To view the digital version of this report, please click here. Following the Irish bailout in late 2010, many thought the increasing presence of the European Union, on behalf of the European Financial Stabilisation Mechanism and the European Financial Stability Facility, might be relatively short lived. But with Portugal joining the list of sovereign borrowers requiring assistance, the EU and the EFSF combined would make the top 35 issuers by volume and is set to rise fast. The final terms of th

To view the digital version of this report, please click here. Credit Suisse added a new chapter to the hybrid capital rule book in February this year with its US$2bn 30-year non-call 5.5 Tier 2 transaction, dubbed Buffer Capital Notes by the issuer. Everyone else called them CoCos, as this was the first public, non-coercive example of that much-vaunted new asset class. Priced at 7.875%, the deal converts into equity upon breach of a 7% Core Tier 1 capital trigger. It was immediately preceded by

To view the digital version of this report, please click here. National Australia Bank’s funding strategy over the last 12 months spanned a range of currencies and structures. Its focus on diversification was well rewarded when investors shrugged off a one-notch downgrade by Moody’s in May. Tanya Angerer reports. Among the Australian majors, NAB has been the most opportunistic issuer over the last year. It pushed funding boundaries in terms of regions, types of investors and maturities, and was

To view the digital version of this report, please click here. In a year of considerable financial uncertainty, private equity companies have been more interested in ensuring the health of their existing portfolio companies than pursuing new conquests. KKR, one of the most active private equity companies in the last 12 months, was no exception. In March, for example, First Data Corp announced plans to extend at least US$3bn of term loans and a US$1.8bn revolver. As part of its extension plan, th

To view the digital version of this report, please click here. The US economy may be teetering on the brink of a double-dip recession; bond bears are predicting a spike in Treasury yields. But the story so far in 2011 has been one of European corporate borrowers continuing to flock to the dollar market. “Since the fall of Lehman Brothers, it has been a golden era for the dollar as a financing currency, but the question is whether it is going to last,” said Marco Baldini, head of European corpora

To view the digital version of this report, please click here. There are many strings to the bow of Lloyds’ funding strategy, but the one with which it is perhaps most closely associated is its very successful activity in the structured finance market. Considering Lloyds’ dominance in the residential mortgage market, it comes as no surprise that RMBS accounts for the bulk of Lloyds’s securitisation activity. But faced with an investor base that is still recovering from the fall-out of the financ

To view the digital version of this report, please click here. In March, the US investment grade loan market proved its depth and resilience when AT&T announced its plans to acquire rival T-Mobile from Deutsche Telekom for a hefty sum of US$39bn. The March 20 announcement took the market by surprise. Only a few days previously a massive earthquake in Japan had set market nerves on edge. Even more surprising was the proposed financing package: a US$20bn bridge loan. The 18-month pledge for a

To view the digital version of this report, please click here. If there is one name that everyone agrees is one of the savviest borrowers from Asia – if not globally – it is Hong Kong blue chip Hutchison Whampoa. The conglomerate has long kept Asian bankers on their toes with its smart and opportunistic funding exercises. It is practically a role model for Asian borrowers in the capital markets. Among the debt fundraisings that Hutch indulged in during the past 12 months, its US$2bn perpetual bo

To view the digital version of this report, please click here. Turkey’s local currency bond market is either an abject failure, or an exciting success, depending on the timescale in which you assess it. In 2010 there was TL1.85bn of issuance while in the first four months of 2011 issuance grew exponentially to TL4.7bn. However in the overall context of Turkey’s non-governmental borrowing activity, this is a mere drop in the ocean. Outstanding corporate bond issues in Turkey account for less than