First half league table update: Westpac holds Australian market lead
Westpac Institutional Bank (Westpac) closed the first half of 2013 at the top of KangaNews's intermediary league tables for all Australian dollar vanilla bond issuance, which include credit, all Kangaroo, and syndicated sovereign and semi-government issuance. The bank's performance is not reliant on self-led volume: Westpac remains top of the table even when self-led deals are excluded.
KangaNews Fixed Income Research Poll 2013: results announced
KangaNews is proud to reveal the results of its 2013 Fixed Income Research Poll, in which Australian institutional investors were asked to vote for the best research providers across a range of sectors relevant to their market. This year's top performers have almost all turned in consistently strong results since the poll was introduced in 2011, but there is also a notable success for a resurgent investment bank.
Read more: KangaNews Fixed Income Research Poll 2013: results announced
Equity credit hybrid fallout continues as S&P downgrades Tabcorp
Tabcorp Holdings (Tabcorp) had its credit rating downgraded by Standard & Poor's on June 25, with the rating agency's April change to its criteria for assigning equity credit to hybrid instruments a key cause of the move. Tabcorp, which had the equity credit on its A$250 million (US$231.2 million) hybrid lowered to intermediate from high, has had its issuer rating reduced by one notch to BBB- with a stable outlook.
H1 issuance slips following June's market shutdown
The first half of calendar 2013 produced largely unspectacular issuance volumes across Australasian credit markets, as the virtual halt to primary activity in June compounded what had already been a moderate year in many sectors. According to KangaNews data, only the Australian corporate and asset-backed markets and New Zealand's Kauri product showed sufficiently robust issuance to register strong volumes across the half year.
Broadly positive response greets NSW budget as TCorp requirement falls
New South Wales Treasury Corporation (TCorp) disclosed a significantly reduced expected funding requirement for its 2013/14 financial year on June 19, a day after a New South Wales (NSW) state budget which continued a theme of state balance sheet consolidation in the face of declining revenues. While some analysts saw little change to the state's outlook following the budget, others suggest asset sales have brought NSW closer to regaining stable status on its triple-A rating.