Online articles

• Ahead of the pack

  Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CommBank) has established a dominant position in the KangaNews Fixed-Income Research poll over recent years. Following another stellar performance in 2017 (see p54), the CommBank analyst team talked to KangaNews about the nature of its role, how it thinks about the type of content from which users can extract real value and the key considerations in team members’ sector specialities.

• Australia in favour

  The Australian Securitisation Forum returned to London to host its annual investor seminar on 5 June. Speakers at the seminar, who included Australian issuers and international investors, discussed their outlook for Australian securitisation half-way through what has been a stellar year for new issuance.

• Australian credit around the world: part four – Australian investors

  The final instalment of the year-long project gauging the views of worldwide investors in Australasian credit product brought KangaNews and Westpac Institutional Bank (Westpac) back to Sydney in June. Participating investors discuss the local issues that are most pressing for them – including the globalisation of the Australian market and the growing momentum in off-benchmark Australian dollar issuance.

• Australian investors support long-dated deals despite shorter duration preference

  While Australia’s corporate market appears to be more willing than ever to engage with longer-dated supply, a plurality of domestic fund managers say they expect to shorten portfolio duration. Investors tell KangaNews the portfolio impact of longer-dated corporate supply can be managed, however – allowing them to respond to issuers’ desire to add tenor to their debt profiles.

• Cracking TLAC

  International banks are establishing a track record of issuing bonds compliant with their local rules on total loss-absorbing capacity (TLAC) denominated in Australian dollars – albeit outside the Australian domestic market. At the same time, market users in Australia are starting to wonder if the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) might be moving away from any plans to develop a local TLAC regime.

• Global perspective

  In the 10th annual supranational, sovereign and agency (SSA) issuer and UK-based investor roundtable, hosted by ANZ and KangaNews in London on 21 June, issuers and investors talk about operating in uncertain times and how they manage geopolitical risk. Participants also discuss their views on socially responsible issuing and investment.

• KangaNews Fixed-Income Research Poll 2017: results announced

  KangaNews is pleased to present the results of its 2017 Fixed-Income Research Poll. This is the only independent, specialist poll of fixed-income investors' views on relevant research in the Australian market. This year marks the seventh consecutive year the poll has been running, and like the previous year 2017 broke a new record in terms of responses. More than 90 legitimate votes were received from qualifying...

• Market news

  Deal and issuer insights, market trends and more in a new bite-sized format.

• Mezzanine funding model evolves as zipMoney reaches 400 investors

  The issuer and arranger of an innovative mezzanine warehouse-funding transaction say the deal demonstrates the burgeoning scale of demand for higher-yielding securitisation notes. The A$40 million (US$30.2 million), class B tranche of zipMoney’s first securitisation warehouse facility was placed with more than 400 accounts according to the transaction’s arranger, FIIG Securities (FIIG).

• Queensland plays the long game

  The state of Queensland bucked the trend for much larger state funding requirements for the year ahead in its latest budget, delivered on 13 June. However, with the issuance task expected to rise again from 2018/19, the state government and Queensland Treasury Corporation (QTC) say sticking to a consistent and careful path of budget and funding management is key.

• Shifting sands

  Australia’s May-June budget season marked a change in direction for sovereign and semi-government bond issuance in the years ahead. While the aggregate funding task for the states is about to grow once more, the Commonwealth government finally produced a budget with a lower year-on-year issuance requirement – assisted by a cash grab from the local banking sector.

• The levy breaks

  The Australian government’s new bank levy is a classic example of good politics and bad policy. Fashioning a narrative where it is anything other than a tax on perhaps the only sector of the economy less popular than the government requires some serious mental gymnastics.

• Victoria: no secrets

  The state of Victoria is at the forefront of the general uptick in Australian semi-government issuance, as it exits a phase of state asset transactions and enters one of major infrastructure investment. The state’s treasurer and its funding agency, Treasury Corporation of Victoria (TCV), talk to KangaNews about the purpose of the new-debt requirement and how it will be funded.

• Winners' words: New Zealand treasury executive and achievement awards

  Continuing the series of interviews with winners of the individual categories in the KangaNews Awards 2016, KangaNews speaks to Mark Butcher, Auckland-based chief executive at the New Zealand Local Government Funding Agency (LGFA) and winner of the New Zealand Treasury Executive of the Year Award, and Murray Jones, head of portfolio management at the New Zealand Debt Management Office (NZDMO) in Wellington and...