News
Greater execution certainty for unrated corporate issuers in Australia encouraged South Africa’s Woolworths Holdings to explore public market issuance for its Australian subsidiaries, David Jones Finance (David Jones) and Country Road. The parent company was eager to diversify the debt funding of its Australian business into capital markets, in line with group funding strategy.
ANZ Banking Group (ANZ) intends to maintain its commitment to green, social and sustainability (GSS) bond issuance, having printed its first such deal in tier-two format in the euro market. The issuer says use-of-proceeds deals are as applicable to capital issuance as senior debt and can even help diversify the investor base as the bank fulfils an increased tier-two requirement.
Port of Melbourne says overwhelming investor support for its latest domestic transaction enabled a substantial upsize. The A$550 million (US$374.4 million) seven-year transaction comes after the issuer placed a multi-tranche US$602.8 million equivalent deal in the US private placement market in April this year.
Natixis unveiled its “green weighting factor” (GWF) on 23 September, with the claim that this makes it the first financial institution to monitor and manage the climate impact of its whole balance sheet. Following a recent visit to Australia, Orith Azoulay, global head of the green and sustainability hub at Natixis in Paris, spoke to KangaNews about how the GWF allocates and adjusts financing to deals based on their ‘greenness’.
Deal sources say Citibank Sydney Branch (Citibank Sydney)’s debut domestic deal attracted significant demand from Australia and Asia as the issuer was able to capitalise on a brief pause in Australian dollar financial institution (FI) issuance at the beginning of November.
Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CommBank) is seeking to demonstrate the viability of the Australian Overnight Index Average (AONIA) as an alternative reference rate (ARR) to the securitisation market through a first-ever residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS) deal linked to the benchmark. The issuer says it is confident the market is ready for this type of issuance and expects all its future RMBS issuance to be AONIA-linked.
National Australia Bank (NAB) tested domestic appetite for longer tier-two tenor with its first deal since Australian total loss-absorbing capacity (TLAC) rules were finalised. NAB says the support for the deal’s 12-year non-call seven (12NC7) duration illustrates underlying appetite for Australian major-bank credit in the tier-two space.
Deal sources say Coles Group (Coles) was able to include a 10-year tranche in its first deal since demerging from Wesfarmers on the back of significant investor demand, while the issuer’s brand and deal preparation held it in good stead during a period of substantial deal flow.
Verizon Communications (Verizon) returned to the Australian market for its second Kangaroo deal on 30 October. The transaction was smaller in size than the issuer’s Australian debut but still pushes the boundaries on Australian dollar tenor through the inclusion of a 20-year tranche with benchmark volume which compares with deeper global markets.
Participants in World Bank’s BOND-I transaction say it has proven correct many of the hypotheses around the potential for capital markets to use distributed-ledger technology (DLT). The challenge now is to achieve wider application so the benefits can be fully realised.
A desire to diversify its funding sources and extend the tenor of its debt book saw Vicinity Centres (Vicinity) make its debut in the euro market on 29 October. The issuer is keen to be a consistent euro borrower and says reliability of 10-year demand was a decisive factor in its market choice.
Origin Energy (Origin) priced its first senior domestic deal since 2006 on 30 October. The issuer says it was able to capitalise on name-familiarity to attract significant levels of demand from investors in Australia and the region despite effectively being a new issuer in the Australian dollar market.