IFR Top 250 Borrowers: Methodology & Tables

By any measure, it has been a great few years for US debt bankers. More investment-grade paper (US$96.8bn) was issued by US corporates in May 2016 than during any single month in history, breaking a record that was itself just three months old. According to Thomson Reuters data, seven of the 10 biggest months for US corporate debt sales have occurred since the start of 2015. Issuance of investment-grade corporate bonds hit US$1.52trn in the full year 2015, beating a record set the previous year (US$1.16trn). It is hard to argue with the...

Despite a flurry of activity at the beginning of 2016 to keep leveraged loan bankers busy, overall business in the year to June was disappointing and new issue volumes considerably lower than during the equivalent period of 2015. It is not as though the phenomenon can be explained away by a lack of support within the investment community: the problem is one of supply. Bankers expect deal flow will return, but volumes are unlikely to catch up with levels seen in recent years. According to Thomson Reuters data, volumes of global leveraged loans...

The last few months have been busy in the Gulf region’s bond markets – all the more notable given the snoozefest that was the beginning of the year. Qatar raised an eye-popping US$9bn at the end of April and was quickly followed by a rush of sub-sovereign trades, but bankers say this is just the thin end of the wedge. “The region’s funding needs over the next 18 months are very high,” said Simon Williams, chief economist for the CEEMEA region at HSBC. “A growing portion of that is going to come through the capital markets.” Ooredoo, Taqa,...

One cannot help shake the feeling that China is sometimes a victim of its own success. Since opening up to the world from the 1970s, it has lifted millions out of poverty, delivered eye-popping levels of productivity growth, and transformed its labour base, coaxing it off the land and onto the factory floor. So, when Beijing now rolls out a grand plan or simply announces an open-ended intention to deliver something new, investors from Seoul to Singapore to Sydney regard the edict as a fait accompli. Then, when reforms stall or are slow in...

Hammered by weakness in commodity markets and persistent concerns about US monetary policy tightening – not to mention a multitude of domestic woes – Latin American local currency debt has endured a gloomy few years. Local currency bonds in Latin America were returning more than 10% in US dollar terms by mid-May, higher than any other emerging market region, according to a JP Morgan index. To put that performance in context, Latin American local currency bonds returned –21.69% in dollar terms last year. Investors and bankers say the...

The past 12 months have seen top borrowers embrace equity-linked bonds for the first time in many years. In Europe, the Middle East and Africa, issuance in recent years has struggled to keep up with bond redemptions, in large part due to the rarity of investment-grade issuers and reliance on small bonds from high-yield issuers. Finally, blue-chip issuers have woken up to the opportunities on offer, breaking records for high premiums and making negative yields a regular feature of the market – even back when Bunds still offered a positive yield...

Primary Debt Market Conclave On the occasion of the International Capital Market Association’s Annual General Meeting and Conference in Dublin in May 2016, IFR convened members of ICMA’s Primary Market Practices Committee to discuss some of the key issues facing the debt syndicate and capital markets communities in the midst of regulatory upheaval and amid a volatile and extraordinary set of market circumstances. We dubbed the event IFR’s Primary Debt Market Conclave, to convey its flavour as a closed-session thought-leadership event. Martin...

HSBC historically had little need for wholesale funding in the public debt markets. But facing one of the largest targets in Europe due to new regulatory requirements, the bank stunned investors and rival banks alike as it rapidly priced a series of deals in the first half of 2016, tackling those needs head-on.  As one of the world’s major lenders, HSBC must build up safety buffers of debt to meet a requirement known as Total Loss Absorbing Capacity (TLAC) that aims to lift the burden of future bank failures from taxpayers’ shoulders. It is...

After reaping the benefits of a strong run-up in Argentina assets, investors are taking stock and viewing the South American country more cautiously as the new government starts to hit road blocks in its efforts to fix the economy and garner political support. President Mauricio Macri’s rapid rollback of his predecessor’s statist policies and a historic settlement with holdout investors earlier this year quickly made Argentina the new market darling and one of EM’s top performers. The spread on Argentina’s country component of JP Morgan’s...

When brewing giant AB InBev began marketing the mega-bond backing its acquisition of SABMiller in early January 2016, the high-grade market had got off to its rockiest start in years. Stress in the credit market was sky high as worries about China, commodities and other headline risk put the primary market in uncertain mood – even on the heels of a record US$1.269trn of issuance in 2015. Pulling the deal off was not just crucial for AB InBev but also for the hoards of other companies that had to follow in its wake to sell debt to finance M&A....

Indonesia has won its reputation the hard way, after years of brickbats from bankers and investors critical of its heavy-handed approach to issuance, which involved long drawn-out timelines and what became a signature compromising of price tension in the execution process. But a streamlining of the diligence process and a consequent tightening of execution in recent years has seen Indonesia emerge as a standard-bearer for offshore sovereign issuance from the region. Arguably, it has replaced the Philippines as the sine qua non of offshore...