Brisbane Airport
A decade of development
The KangaNews-Westpac Corporate Debt Summit debuted in 2011, with a relatively small audience and a market that could not yet take consistent supply of corporate bonds for granted. In the decade since, the event and the market have grown and diversified. By 2019 – the last year before COVID-19 put the in-person event on hiatus – registrations had more than trebled, to nearly 600, and the event’s agenda covered not just corporate debt but a raft of issues relevant to the economic and business environment.
Eye of the storm
When Australia went into lockdown, transport and shipping infrastructure saw an unprecedented business shock. Airport and toll-road passenger numbers collapsed while even freight flows dropped as the global economy ground to a halt. In October, KangaNews and Westpac Institutional Bank gathered key players in the Australian sector to discuss business impact, balance-sheet resilience and the swift rebound of debt capital markets including the domestic option.
Corporates find more crisis funding options
The economy-wide impact of COVID-19 has affected Australian corporate borrowers in a host of ways. But access to funds has generally remained in place as issuers navigate a path back to some type of normality – even for those in the most affected sectors.
Insights from the corporate front line: Brisbane Airport and the COVID-19 crisis
Airports around the world have gone quiet as result of COVID-19, bringing corporate liquidity to the fore. Brisbane Airport Corporation was able to re-engage the Australian domestic market in late June for a deal it was looking to execute prior to the crisis. The airport’s head of corporate finance, Warren Briggs, speaks with KangaNews about the deal process and crisis management.
Brisbane Airport prints A$850 million dual-tranche transaction
Brisbane Airport launches domestic benchmark transaction
On 23 June, Brisbane Airport (BBB/Baa2) launched a new Australian dollar denominated benchmark transaction, offered in either or both six- and 10.5-year tenor. Indicative price guidance for the six-year tranche is 275-300 basis points area over semi-quarterly swap, while the 10.5-year tranche, which is offered in either or both fixed and floating-rate note format, is 375-400 basis points area over swap benchmarks.
