CINQUINA There are still investors out there that are yet to participate in the semi-government sector, including in Europe and Japan. We just need to continue to undertake marketing. Whether there are new names out there we haven’t heard of comes down to the information we get from our panel banks. We won’t find them on our own.

NICHOLL For the states, the next investor is most likely to be one that has already been participating in the government bond market. A European central bank I spoke with late last year – an account that has been in the government bond market for a couple of years – had a lot of questions about the semi-government sector. It seemed to be gearing to move in this direction, which is a pattern we have seen in the past.

CINQUINA This has been a major positive to come out of the growth of the sovereign balance sheet and its funding requirement. It has been much easier to get in doors by finding investors that have been active in Australian Office of Financial Management (AOFM) stock and have therefore decided the Australian market is worth being involved in.

TRIGONA The combination of marketing and the establishment of the AOFM’s 30-year bond has made a huge difference in our market. Our ability to issue longer than 10 years has been greatly enhanced.
Lofting It feels as though it has pulled back in the last few months, though.

CINQUINA I’d say this is probably partly to do with the typically quieter market conditions in December and January. But overall I think you are right.

FAJARDO We saw some new buyers in the long end coming out of Asia last year, but they are very yield-sensitive.

LOFTING All our strategies are the same, in that we try to build relationships with investors in different sectors and jurisdictions that buy Australian dollar bonds. They buy for different reasons and usually we only need one to be working at any one time.

Going back to 2010, all the central banks began opening up to Australian dollar bonds and semi-government issuers travelled the world marketing. Those relationships are established now and the channels are open, even if participation ebbs and flows.

FAJARDO We have a consistent approach to marketing, recognising the importance of building longstanding relationships with investors on- and offshore irrespective of the size of our programme. What we look at on a year-to-year basis is not whether to increase or decrease our marketing effort as a whole but whether a greater marketing effort is required in a particular region or to a particular investor type.

Last year, for instance, we spent more time in Asia and we saw the benefit through these investors’ purchase of long-dated bonds. We are focusing more effort now on domestic real money and in the green space. It is important to continue to strengthen these relationships.

TRIGONA Our green bond attracted 15 new investors, which was a very important part of why we did the deal. We met a lot of investors in Europe that were interested in us specifically because at some point we were going to do a green bond. We had 57 accounts in the book where typically we would see around 35. The green aspect certainly helped with diversification.