Corporate Bond Market

Budget reforms will redefine the financial system by fostering inclusion, competition, and efficiency. Financial institutions will benefit from enhanced market depth and improved liquidity

Tata Steel is likely to raise around Rs 3,000 crore ($345.6 million) through this bond issue

Syndicate bankers expect to see companies raising nearly $65 billion this week, and perhaps as much as $200 billion this month, in a bond issuance spree that is showing no sign of slowing

State Bank of India chairman C S Setty on Wednesday called for active participation by mutual funds and pension funds in the corporate bond market. "I am sure that a lot of corporates would like to issue bonds. I believe that if household/corporate savings are finding ways into these three investment categories, it is important that insurance and mutual funds also actively participate in the corporate bond market. I don't see that kind of participation actively coming in," Setty said. He said the pension/ mutual funds are making investments in AAA-rated bonds and this is not going to help deepen the corporate bond market. Setty said the corporate bond market has to come into financing of infrastructure as well as balance sheet funding of corporates. He said the investments are happening not only in equity but also in mutual funds, pension funds and insurance funds. "We have been debating on depth of the corporate bond market for many years. We could not achieve that depth," Setty

Issuers hold back, eyeing lower borrowing costs after Fed cut

Niti Aayog is working on proposals to deepen the corporate bond markets to achieve an alternative to bank finance for borrowers, the government think tank said in its Annual Report 2023-24. The corporate bond market, seen as an alternative to bank finance for borrowers, helps companies to raise long-term funds at competitive costs. "The vertical is in the process of developing a holistic research buttressed with key policy recommendations to deepen the corporate bond markets to achieve an alternative to bank finance for borrowers," it said. The report said corporate bond markets are an efficient cost-minimisation process for long-term funding and contribute significantly to financial stability. "It is a mechanism for supporting the bank for long-term lending against relatively shorter-tenor liabilities and helping the insurance companies and pension fund holders to diversify their portfolios while spreading or distributing the risks and managing the liquidity gap," it added. The .

HDFC's large fund raise stimulated the bond market, creating a momentum that continued into the subsequent months

To accommodate India's 10 per cent weight in the GBI EM index, HSBC said in a recent note, a reweighting will occur for other EM peers in the index, which will see a reduction in their weights.

Indian bonds have seen foreign inflows of nearly $10 billion over the last six months

Market expected to finance one-sixth of envisaged capex in infrastructure, corporate sectors

Bank treasury heads believe that the inclusion of non-SLR securities in HTM portfolios may spur activity in the corporate bond market

With an aim to boost liquidity in the secondary market for corporate bonds, markets regulator Sebi on Friday came out with a proposal for enabling direct participation by clients in the tri-party repo segment for corporate bonds. The proposal will facilitate direct participation in repo transactions in corporate bonds by entities which cannot take direct membership of the stock exchange, clearing corporation such as NBFCs, insurance companies, mutual funds, etc. In its consultation paper, Sebi has suggested for facilitating transactions directly between clients and the Limited Purpose Clearing Corporation (LPCC) in the tri-party repo segment as well as to enabling contribution by such clients directly to the Core SGF (Settlement Guarantee Fund). "In order to strengthen the risk management system of the LPCC to meet the contingencies arising on account of possible failure of the clients/ participants as well, it is essential that the contribution to the Core SGF can also be made by .

Municipal bonds are primarily issued to raise money for financing infrastructure projects like building parks, libraries, schools, police departments and community centres

Regulator sets up working group to spot lacunae in failed framework introduced over a decade ago

Corporate bond issuance is likely to remain muted witnessing 4-5 per cent growth this fiscal to touch Rs 41.42 lakh crore on rising coupon rates, despite the drawdown more than doubling in the second quarter, a report said. Bond sales more than doubled to Rs 2.1 lakh crore in the second quarter from the first quarter, when it was at a multi-year quarterly low of Rs 1 lakh crore, as banks issued bonds worth an all-time high of Rs 53,900 crore, and NBFCs, traditionally largest players in the market, issuing securities worth Rs 1.1 lakh crore in Q2, according to an analysis by Icra Ratings. Non-banking lenders have remained the largest issuers of bonds with a share of 47 per cent in the first half, followed by corporates and banks at 33 and 20 per cent, respectively, down from 50, 40 and 10 per cent, respectively from H1FY22, according to the report. Thanks to bumper sales in Q2, the overall bond issuances rose to Rs 3.3 lakh crore in the first half, and the agency expects Rs 3.7-4.2 .

Corporate bond issuance is looking impressive, but the market still has some distance to go before it can be considered deep

Even as regulators push to deepen corporate bond market by increasing liquidity in secondary market, efforts are getting nullified by the near-total dominance (98.5 per cent) of private placements, which can't be traded in secondary market, shows a report. Sustained market making efforts by the regulators have seen the outstanding bonds rising by almost four-fold to Rs 39.6 lakh crore in FY22 from Rs 10.5 lakh crore in FY12, according to an analysis by Bank of Baroda's economists. Between FY21 and FY22, outstanding corporate bonds increased by 11.2 per cent. As against this, the government bond outstanding is Rs 84.71 lakh crore and total volume, including the secondary market trading, was Rs 126.6 lakh crore in FY22. As much as 98 per cent of the new issuances of corporate bonds are carried out in the private placement route in FY22, with just 2 per cent of the Rs 6 lakh crore issuances being public issues in FY22. Public issuances of bonds inched further to 1.5 per cent so far thi

"While we can discuss the reasons for this trend, it is clear that the corporate bond market largely meets the needs of highly rated corporates," he said

Opening up India's corporate bond market is an important part of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's pledge to almost double the size of the economy to $5 trillion by 2025

Global issuances have crossed levels seen before the pandemic