The KangaNews-Westpac Institutional Bank Corporate Debt Summit 2023 took place in Sydney in mid-October. A record number of delegates gathered to discuss the present and future of the Australian corporate environment, from the economic outlook and business conditions to the forthcoming impact of generative AI. In the mix was a steady but unspectacular corporate bond issuance environment that belies fundamental growth in domestic credit.

The Australian Securitisation Forum’s 2023 annual conference attracted a record number of delegates – well over a thousand attended – and offered its most wide-ranging agenda ever. The securitisation industry has navigated higher rates and increasing global uncertainty well to date, with record volume printing in 2023 and a notable uptick in collateral diversity. The road ahead may be tricky but the market is facing it with confidence.

KangaNews is proud to announce the winners of the institutional and deal categories in the KangaNews Awards 2023. At the end of another busy year in the Australian and New Zealand capital markets, KangaNews received votes from hundreds of market participants keen to recognise the achievements of 2023's most outstanding performers.

The centrepiece of the KangaNews Mutual Sector Wholesale Funding Seminar is the discussion of funding conditions for the sector and the credit market more generally. In a year that has seen a clutch of significant bank failures offshore – but also notable growth in the capacity available to financial institution issuers in the Australian dollar term debt market – speakers at the 30 August seminar counselled mutual banks to stick to the old values of investor engagement, open communication and access to funding diversity.

One of the main factors put forward to explain why Australian true corporate issuance continues to underperform in an otherwise largely positive local credit market is suboptimal execution practice. KangaNews goes inside the deal process with parties on all sides of transactions to understand why many market users believe execution is letting the local corporate market down.

Alarming headlines about office vacancy rates are the most visible sign of a downturn in the commercial property space. While cyclical and structural factors are weighing on the sector, though, investors and rating agencies continue to back the sound fundamentals of its Australian issuers.

A step-change in supply dynamics has combined with positive demand factors to boost secondary turnover in Australian semi-government bonds. Local real-money investors generally agree with the suggestion that semi-government tradability has reached a new level, while bid-side liquidity is strong even for less heavily traded names.

As global markets gradually come to terms with the implications of the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank, Australian market participants agree that even the world’s better regulated banking sectors – and wider credit markets – will feel ongoing negative consequences from what most believe to be an idiosyncratic risk event. The bank failure brought a promising start for credit issuance in Australia to a screeching halt and while there are hopes for rebound in due course it will likely be on a more fragile basis.

The focus of commentary in the Australian securitisation market has tended to be on borrowers’ ability to keep making loan payments as higher interest rates cut deeper into household balance sheets. But investors are also paying close attention to technical factors in the structured finance asset class, including the potential for some deals not to be called at the earliest opportunity.

An increasing number of studies link gender diversity with sustainability ambition. In October 2022, Clean Energy Finance Corporation, the Australian Sustainable Finance Institute and KangaNews hosted senior industry leaders to examine this relationship.