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On July 16, QIC Shopping Centre Fund (A- by S&P) mandated a series of debt investor meetings in Asia and Australia to explore opportunities for a capital markets transaction. This issuer was last in the domestic market in November 2013, when it printed A$175 million (US$128.8 million) of six-year notes at 150 basis points over swap.
On July 15, Toronto Dominion Bank (TD Bank) (AA-/Aa1) launched and priced a new 18-month floating-rate note (FRN) transaction in the Australian market. The deal is TD Bank's second-ever Kangaroo, and its first in senior-unsecured format.
Standard & Poor's Ratings Services (S&P) resolved its negative credit watch on the state of Western Australia (WA) on July 14, affirming the state's AA+ rating – but retaining a negative outlook. The rating agency expects WA's revenue position to improve in the coming years, but warns that it has little flexibility for expenditure slippage within the AA+ band.
The second auction of residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS) conducted by the Australian Office of Financial Management (AOFM) followed the precedent set by the first, as the majority of securities offered were not sold. The July 14 auction saw less than A$100.0 million (US$74.3 million) of amortised face value (AFV) sold – less than the A$161.5 million cleared on June 24.
On July 13, the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) published a study comparing Australian major bank capital ratios with those of their international peers. The study is the next step in APRA's response to the Australian financial-system inquiry (FSI) recommendation that Australian banks be required to be in the top quartile of global banks for capital.
Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CommBank) (AA-/Aa2/AA-) mandated a new self-led, five-year, senior-unsecured benchmark transaction on July 13, in what will be the bank's first public deal in the Australian market since it sold A$1.0 billion (US$743.6 million) of tier-two paper in October 2014.
Markets remained in wait-and-see mode as Greece's debt woes and Chinese equity market uncertainty weighed heavily on sentiment. This provided little opportunity for intermediaries to add to their year-to-date league table positions.
With the first half of 2015 now in the rear-view mirror, KangaNews is pleased to reveal its intermediary league tables for the first six months of the year. Most of the contenders are well established, but the first half also saw some notable movement from full-year 2014.