Australian dollars at the back of the new-year queue for global borrowers
The Kangaroo supranational, sovereign and agency (SSA) market has started 2019 with a trickle rather than its usual flood and intermediaries say Australian dollar pricing has been uncompetitive compared with offshore markets. They report solid fundamental demand but say a supply uptick is unlikely until there is a shift in the basis swap and pricing expectations.
Contact SLL highlights New Zealand’s growing sustainable-finance options
Contact Energy (Contact)’s new sustainability-linked loan (SLL) incentivises improvements in areas such as corporate governance, stakeholder engagement and environmental impact. Participants in the deal believe that the SLL product will be applicable for a broad set of borrowers in New Zealand as it is elsewhere.
Read more: Contact SLL highlights New Zealand’s growing sustainable-finance options
The route to the future
As part of a rare and brief visit to Australia in December 2019, Marilyn Ceci, managing director and head of green bonds at J.P. Morgan in New York, met with KangaNews. Ceci does not predict that use-of-proceeds sustainable bonds will give way to general-corporate-purposes issuance with an environmental, social and governance (ESG) overlay. She views the urgency of the low-carbon-economy transition to be such that all well-considered, meaningful and deliberate steps on the sustainability path are critical.
Westpac’s outcome highlights US dollar edge in new-year issuance options
Westpac Banking Corporation (Westpac) executed a multitranche senior-unsecured deal and a covered-bond transaction in the US dollar market on 9 January 2020. The issuer says it received strong ongoing support as major-bank benchmark deals continue to flow freely in domestic and global markets, though the US has been the jewel in the crown.
NAB executes first domestic senior deal since TLAC announcement
National Australia Bank (NAB) says the increase in Australian dollar tier-two issuance has influenced the pricing equilibrium of senior paper. On 13 January, NAB printed its first domestic senior deal since the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority’s decision on local total loss-absorbing capacity (TLAC) in July 2019.