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Kiwibank’s decision to pull a planned Kangaroo transaction between pricing and settlement was driven by a preliminary Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ) view that the issuer’s outstanding tier-one and tier-two securities may not comply with the local capital-adequacy regime.
The KangaNews Awards Gala Dinner, held on 21 March in Sydney, celebrated the winners of the KangaNews Awards 2016. KangaNews is proud to share a flavour of the dinner, which brings together participants in the Australian and New Zealand debt markets from across the two countries and all around the world. KangaNews would like to thank all the guests for contributing to such a memorable evening, and for supporting Cure Cancer Australia with their donations
New Zealand has enjoyed several years of economic outperformance and fixed-income market development. Speakers at the KangaNews New Zealand Capital Markets Forum, which took place in Wellington in March and was sponsored by ANZ, are keeping a close eye out for signs of economic overheating and continue to seek new assets for the growing pool of local investment funds.
In March, KangaNews hosted its third annual Socially Responsible Investment Seminar in Sydney – at a time in which environmental, social and governance (ESG) principles are planting deep roots in the local investor base and being met by a greater flow of targeted product. Together with its headline sponsor, TD Securities, KangaNews presents a flavour of Australia’s thought leadership in the socially responsible debt space.
Australia’s burgeoning green-bond market was supplemented in March by the issue of the country’s first benchmark social bond. Key deal sources discuss the considerations behind the transaction at issuer and market level, and lay out the challenges that may lie in the way of substantial growth.
If socially responsible fixed-income asset classes, and in particular green bonds, become a consistent component of the Australian debt market it seems likely that March-April 2017 will be looked back on as a landmark period. Issuance volume hit an all-time high, including a clutch of breakthrough and innovative transactions.
KangaNews features the work of Dr Steven Lane, who is the recipient of a Cure Cancer Australia 2017 grant funded by KangaNews and Kapstream Capital. After speaking at the 2017 KangaNews Awards Gala Dinner, Lane talks about his work and the generosity of capital-markets participants on the night.
In 2007, to commemorate the birth of the Kauri market for supranational, sovereign and agency (SSA) issuers, BNZ committed to planting 100 Kauri trees in New Zealand’s Coromandel Peninsula for each transaction it arranged. As the market approaches its 10th anniversary, BNZ took a group of the biggest Kauri issuers to see the plantation and reflect on the sector’s evolution.
Since 2012, Korean-origin issuance has quietly become one of the mainstays of the sub-triple-A Kangaroo market – and some of the same borrowers have also started to make their presence felt in New Zealand. There is a lingering sense of untapped potential in these issuers, some of which say they increasingly view the Australian dollar as a strategic funding currency.
During this year, KangaNews is speaking to the winners of the individual categories of the KangaNews Awards 2016. Andrea Dore, lead financial officer and head of funding at World Bank, discusses the institutional evolution and personal drive that saw her win the Kangaroo Market Achievement Award.
As part of a year-long project to gauge the opinions of international credit investors on Australasian-origin product, KangaNews and Westpac Institutional Bank took the third part of the series to London in April. UK-based investors share their views on geopolitical risk, managing credit in a continuing low-yield environment and investing in bonds issued by Australian credits.
Asciano Finance netted A$350 million (US$258.2 million) in a new domestic deal during the first week of May. Final pricing on the upsized transaction was 15 basis points inside initial price thoughts. Elsewhere, Treasury Corporation of Victoria revealed it will be back to borrowing, disclosing a A$8.3 billion expected funding task for 2017/18.