Online articles

• Australian credit around the world: part two – US private placement investors

  Westpac Institutional Bank (Westpac) and KangaNews are conducting a year-long project to gauge the opinions of international credit investors on Australasian-origin product. In part two, a group of US private placement (USPP) investors met during the annual industry conference in Boca Raton.

• Block by block

  Participants in the world’s first government-sector blockchain bond issuance trial – Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CommBank) and Queensland Treasury Corporation (QTC) – say the experience highlights the extent to which distributed-ledger technology could improve capital-market functionality.

• Brace position

  The great rotation, the end of the bond bull run, Brexit, Donald Trump’s election and the rise of populism: during his annual trip to Australia in January, Vanguard’s New-York based global head of fixed income, Greg Davis, shared his insights on all these topics – and more – with KangaNews.

• Competitive pricing and long-dated demand supports AusNet’s record-breaking volume

  AusNet Services (AusNet) accumulated final interest of A$800 million (US$609.8 million) for its A$425 million August 2027 domestic line printed on 7 February. This makes the deal the Australian market’s largest 10-year transaction for a corporate since 2007. The outcome was driven by growing domestic demand for 10-year paper and the issuer’s desire to price in line with its global curve.

• Home is where the heart is

  Global events of  2016 have, among many other consequences, served to make Australia’s political environment look relatively stable by comparison. Australia may have developed a habit of changing prime ministers on a more regular basis than is strictly desirable – five times in less than a decade, only twice as the result of  elections – but political risk has never been high on investors’ checklists when...

• Kauri market opens with constructive tone as heavy redemption year looms

  Intermediaries say investor diversification continues to provide the Kauri market with appeal to global issuers, and despite some question marks over pricing appeal the market opened to a solid flow of activity in 2017. Kauri issuance typically tapers off in the second half of the calendar year, but market users are optimistic about 2017 due to a period of substantial redemptions.

• Markets in the community: The Deaf Society of NSW

  Featuring the work of an asset manager who is using his financial-markets experience to contribute positively to The Deaf Society of New South Wales – an organisation with the goal of supporting equity for deaf people.

• Stating a claim

  Jamie Grant, head of Asian fixed income at First State Investments (First State) in Hong Kong, talks to KangaNews about opportunities in an Asian debt market that continues to develop scale and diversity, the Asian investor mindset and how the region will react to heightened global uncertainty.

• Stay tuned

  The 14th annual Debt Market Update (DMU), published by Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CommBank) in February, homes in on the potential for political turbulence to feed into capital markets as 2017 progresses. Borrowing conditions are positive at the start of the year, but CommBank is counselling its clients not to let their vigilance drop – and to have a plan in place.

• The buck stops... where?

  Issuers’ and investors’ long-term incentives to support local-market development are not necessarily aligned with their nearterm drivers. Intermediaries may have to bear the load.

• The fourth phase

  The latest era of the supranational, sovereign and agency Kangaroo market has been protracted. Not all market participants are convinced of the sector’s long-term health.