The federal government is re-evaluating its plan to facilitate retail access to corporate issuers. However, industry sources doubt that even improvements to the simplified corporate bond regime will encourage supply.

On 11 November, VisionFund International (VisionFund), the microfinance subsidiary of World Vision, launched an inaugural five-year, indicative A$20 million (US$13.7 million) Kangaroo impact bond. The forthcoming deal has a coupon of 5 per cent paid semi-annually. FIIG Securities is leading.

High-profile difficulties experienced by some issuers in Australia’s high-yield bond market have brought the value and distribution of such securities into question. Institutional market participants say there is nothing fundamentally wrong with the high-yield sector but argue that troubled transactions reaffirm the need for securities to be properly valued and appropriately distributed.

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).