Global Investing

The past 24 hours have brought news of more fund launches targeting emerging corporate debt;  Barings and HSBC have started a fund each while ING Investment Management said its fund launched late last year had crossed $100 million.  We have written about the seemingly insatiable demand  for corporate emerging bonds in recent months,  with the asset class last month surpassing the $1 trillion mark.  Data from Thomson Reuters shows today that a record $263 billion worth of EM corporate debt has already been underwritten this year by banks, more than a fifth higher than was issued in the same 2011 period (see graphic):

The biggest surge has come from Latin America, the data shows, with Brazilian companies accounting for one-fifth of the issuance. A $7 billion bond from Brazil’s state oil firm Petrobras was the second biggest global emerging market bond ever.

The top 10 EM corporate bonds of the year:  Petrobras issued the two biggest bonds of $7 billion and $3 billion, followed by Venezuela’s PDVSA and Indonesia’s Petramina. Brazil’s Santander Leasing was in fifth place, Mexican firms PEMEX and America Movil were sixth and seventh.  Chilean miner CODELCO, Brazil’s Banco do Brasil and  Russia’s Sberbank also entered the list.

The hunger for yield is trumping any concerns about the companies themselves or even broader emerging market risks.  So far investors have not been disappointed; emerging corporate debt on JP Morgan’s benchmark CEMBI index have delivered dollar-based returns of around 15 percent this year, easily outstripping the 10 percent gains on global corporate debt.

A new set of data from Thomson Reuters sheds light on blossoming European corporate bond activity.

Here are the main findings:

– European corporate debt totals $75 billion so far during 2012, up 83% over the same period in 2011, and a year-to-date total only surpassed by 2009 in the last decade.  January 2012 saw $48 billion raised, the strongest month since March 2011 ($50 billion).  With a week to go before the end of the month, February issuance is already up 68% over February 2011.

– German, UK and French borrowers dominate the European corporate bond market, accounting for 69% of all issuance. The Energy & Power and Industrials sectors are particularly prevalent in Europe, accounting for over 44% of the market.

Signs of the wholesale funding stress are cropping up in the FX swaps market, with the premium for swapping euro LIBOR into dollar LIBOR over 3 months (so-called cross currency swap) rising to 141.5 basis points, which is the post-Lehman Brothers high.

The premium has skyrocketed in the past six months (back in May it was only 16.5bps) because European banks needing funds are forced to turn to the FX swap market, and other banks are reluctant to lend to European companies in the United States.

And it looks like the situation is going to get worse from here, because of weak dollar bond issuance by euro zone companies.