Bonds bonanza in Asia Pacific
The New Year saw unprecedented activity in Asian debt capital markets with record levels of Asian currency bond issuance from regional governments and companies, as they tried to leverage low interest rates to help raise funds for recovery as well as growth to new markets. This included the Republic of Indonesia's 3 billion US dollar/ 1 billion euro 4-tranche sovereign issuance.
The combination of investors keen to put money to work, coupled with clients looking to extend debt maturities and capture the first available funding window, led to the landmark volume of issuance according to Deutsche Bank's APAC head of Capital Markets, Haitham Ghattas.