Melbourne Airport
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.
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.
Melbourne Airport leans into Australian dollars
Melbourne Airport turned to the domestic market to execute its latest transaction in part to avoid offshore investor concern about Australia’s strict border rules. The A$700 million 10-year deal priced on 17 November, becoming the issuer’s first domestic transaction since 2016.
Melbourne Airport prints 10-year A$700 million senior-secured deal
Corporate sustainable finance evolution
Investors globally are increasingly demanding their allocations align with sustainability principles. As capital markets move rapidly to cater to this appetite, KangaNews and BNP Paribas brought together Australian corporate issuers to discuss their interaction with global debt markets.