Online articles

• Long-end Kangaroo market evolution takes another step forward

  Higher Australian dollar yield has sparked recent growth in long-end Kangaroo deal flow – including a notable increase in transaction volume – market participants tell KangaNews. However, they believe it is too early to say whether more regular benchmark-sized issuance in the long end will establish itself as a consistent market feature.

• 2017 market data review: Australasian intermediary league tables

  With debt-market issuance for 2018 now well under way, KangaNews looks back at the past year to review the final outcome of its Australian and New Zealand intermediary league tables in 2017. The stars are largely familiar faces but the billing order continues to shift – and the supporting cast features a few newer names.

• Another deal dodges market upheaval as NAB debuts green RMBS in Australia

  National Australia Bank (NAB)’s first capital-relief residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS) deal to price since the financial crisis – and the first RMBS from any issuer in Australia to contain certified green notes – achieved oversubscription across its structure and tight-end-of-guidance pricing despite coming to market in a period of renewed equity-market volatility, the issuer says.

• AusNet’s 10-year outcome highlights consistency of Australian corporate issuance conditions

  AusNet Services (AusNet)’s debut deal for 2018 demonstrates the long-dated demand uncovered in 2017 was not simply a trend while conditions were favourable, deal sources argue. Demand, and AusNet’s final outcome, were robust despite broader market uncertainty.

• Australasian maturity profile hints at market-development patterns

  Data on the maturity volume for various sectors of the Australian and New Zealand debt markets may provide only limited clues as to forthcoming issuance patterns, but it does shine a light on market development. In particular, issuance has tended to exceed maturities in most Australian dollar credit asset classes while New Zealand supply has lagged redemptions of late.

• Climate-awareness bonds set the early tone for Kangaroo SSA sector in 2018

  The supranational, sovereign and agency (SSA) Kangaroo market reopened for 2018 with two European Investment Bank (EIB)-issued climate-awareness bond transactions that intermediaries hope will foreshadow another robust year in the sector. The benchmark volume of the initial transaction underscores solid investor confidence in Kangaroo SSAs, intermediaries insist.

• Liberty targets personal-loan price refinement with fintech acquisition

  The rise of marketplace and fintech-led lenders could reshape the landscape of Australian securitisation in the coming years, as new market entrants seek to deliver superior risk pricing. Liberty Financial (Liberty) announced on 31 January that it is acquiring MoneyPlace, and 18-month-old marketplace lender, and Liberty’s Melbourne-based chief executive, James Boyle, talked to KangaNews about what the thinking...

• QNB’s debut Kangaroo displays issuer and market strength

  In the wake of the Kangaroo market’s first inaugural issue for 2018, Qatar National Bank (QNB)’s debut transaction on 24 January, issuer and intermediaries say conducive market conditions and extensive investor relations provided the foundation for a successful outcome.

• Rating upgrade and unsatisfied demand leads UED to fine pricing

  United Energy Distribution (UED) benefited from ongoing positive credit-market conditions as well as a boost to its own credit profile as it printed the Australian market’s first true-corporate transaction of 2018. Deal sources say demand remains robust but the outlook for supply is less clear.

• Sausage making

  As we approach the KangaNews Awards Gala Dinner and its much-anticipated revelation of the individual winners in the KangaNews Awards 2017, I thought it might be worthwhile to shed some light on the process behind the decisions. It is a time-consuming and laborious process, but one that we at KangaNews hope is viewed positively by our market.

• Scaling up

  Australia’s proximity to and ever-increasing ties with investors in Asia is spinning off plenty of impacts in the debt markets, one of which is heightened issuer engagement with the US dollar Reg S market. Reg S has the potential to become a true pan-Asian benchmark funding option, market users say.

• SDG the next step forward for Australian – and European – sustainable debt

  On 14 February, ANZ Banking Group (ANZ) issued the first-ever bond from an Australian bank to be tied to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the first such deal ever in the euro market and just the second from any bank globally. KangaNews spoke to deal sources about the demand drivers, the bank’s own motivations and the shape of market evolution.

• Short tenor new on the menu for USPP

  At the end of January, Westpac Institutional Bank – together with its joint-venture partner, Bank of America Merrill Lynch – and KangaNews hosted US private placement (USPP) issuers and investors at their annual roundtable in Miami. Investors discuss the market’s new-found willingness to look at shorter-dated paper, among a range of talking points.

• Simmer down

  A reduced aggregate funding target for calendar 2018 should change the issuance menu for Australia’s big-four banks, heads of funding tell KangaNews. Meanwhile, the majors say their funding tasks are well set despite the re-emergence of market volatility in February.

• The scope and limitations of ESG integration

  We live in a global world. With circa 46 per cent of S&P 500 sales and 70 per cent-plus of the revenues in FTSE 100 members coming from overseas, the social and financial footprint of a company is no longer limited to its country of origin.

• Valuing competition in Australia's trustee sector

  In early February, KangaNews facilitated a roundtable discussion in Sydney with Australian Executor Trustees (AET), Equity Trustees and Eticore. Coinciding with publication of the draft report of the Australian government’s review of competition in the financial system, participants reflect on the state of play in Australia’s corporate-trust sector.