Online articles

• Bringing in the buy side

  Finding and executing genuinely innovative funding solutions has been a major focus for National Australia Bank (NAB) in recent years. To make this strategy work, the bank aims to shed light on a critical component of funding innovation: understanding investor preferences and connecting them with assets that may not be available elsewhere.

• Canadian proliferation

  Canadian banks have been issuing regularly in Australia, in Kangaroo and domestic format, since 2010. Since 2013 they have become one of the mainstays of the market. In the wake of a clutch of Australian dollar deals, funders discuss their banks’ engagement with and the sustainability of Australia as a regular funding destination.

• Contact lights the path for green corporate issuance in New Zealand

  In August, Contact Energy (Contact) finalised a NZ$1.8 billion (US$1.3 billion) green borrowing programme – the first such certification completed by a New Zealand issuer and also the largest-ever single green certification by the Climate Bonds Initiative (CBI). KangaNews spoke to Louise Tong, Contact’s Wellington-based head of capital markets and tax, about the thinking behind the initiative, the process and...

• Corporate Australia makes hay

  The KangaNews-Westpac Corporate Debt Summit returned to Sydney on 13 September, against arguably the most positive backdrop for Australian corporate bond issuance in at least half a decade. Now in its seventh annual iteration, the conference drew a record crowd for the fourth consecutive year.

• Corporate borrowers' intentions survey: corporate capital-markets creep

  The latest instalment of the KangaNews-Moody’s Investors Service (Moody’s) Corporate Borrowers’ Intentions Survey – published annually since 2014 – maintains a longstanding trend of only gradual shifts in corporate debt policy. At the margin, Australasian corporates appear to expect more capital-markets activity but there is no sign of a rush to credit-funded investment.

• Fixed-income investor survey: Investors pass home economics

  The latest iteration of the biannual Australian Fixed-Income Investor Survey, conducted by Fitch Ratings (Fitch) and KangaNews in September, suggests the buy-side tone on economic fundamentals is warming. At the same time, however, investors are wary about the extended period of spread compression they have experienced across debt asset classes.

• Multisource financing: making multiple options work

  In an environment where Australian issuers, especially from the infrastructure sector, are actively seeking diversified funding options, two Allens partners – James Darcy and Scott McCoy – discuss the key structuring considerations for issuers and sponsors wishing to establish debt platforms to access longer-term financing options.

• New dawn in the West

  In March this year, Western Australia (WA) had its first change of government in eight years. Following the September delivery of his first budget, the state’s treasurer, Ben Wyatt, talked to KangaNews about the new government’s targets of financial prudence, and how its revenue and expenditure measures should reassure investors, markets and rating agencies.

• New Zealand's meeting of minds

  In September, BNZ and KangaNews brought together a group of the most significant issuers and investors in the New Zealand debt market – from on- and offshore – for their annual roundtable discussion. In one of the most insightful conversations in this long-running series, Kiwi market participants analyse the present and future state of play.

• On the grid

  Ausgrid was always destined to be a major capital-markets player after its part-privatisation by the New South Wales government. A jumbo debut in the US private placement market will be just the first step towards a term-out that the company expects to involve around A$9 billion of bond issuance.

• Plain sailing persists for major-bank funders

  KangaNews and RBC Capital Markets hosted the heads of funding at Australia’s biggest banks to discuss issuance dynamics, global investor feedback on the Australian housing market, capital and regulation, and the challenges facing securitisation for big-four bank issuers.

• Postponing the inevitable

  This issue of KangaNews looks at the fiscal situation in Europe, and in particular how the European Central Bank will slow and eventually stop the flow of QE funds. There are even bigger questions to be answered as the developed world continues to deal with the fallout of the financial crisis, however – most notably whether a true asset-price reset is inevitable.

• Taper tantrum or tame unwind?

  Despite countless doubters and detractors, the European Central Bank (ECB) joined the multi-asset-buying policy trail in Q1 2015. To some, this unprecedented, extensive and expansionary monetary action saved the euro, or at least prevented an economic recession turning into a potentially irreparable depression. Market participants are now asking what comes next.