Squirrel on squirrel violence

The plight of the red squirrel, native to the UK, is well known — pushed out by the chunkier, more vigorous grey variety imported from the US. Is there a parrallel with the European corporate bond market we wonder, given the vast amounts of US corporate bond issuance taking place this year in euros, sterling and Swiss francs?

US borrowers are set to push Reverse Yankee bond issuance to record volumes this year, causing a worry that their investor-friendly pricing approach will hurt the funding costs of Europe's domestic companies, or may even start to crowd them out of the market. We discuss the dynamics in the primary bond market and what the omens are for European credits with a hefty Reverse Yankee pipeline still to come to market this year.

Another group of issuers that might not be getting it all their own way in the bond market is MIddle East banks. Despite having issued little senior debt so far this year, thanks to the Iran war, the signs were when issuance resumed this week that demand was not overwhelmingly good. There is no sense that this group of issuers cannot raise capital in the bond market but the level of demand is very different to what it was. We look at why that is and what it means for the pipeline of bonds to come.

We also discuss UK equity capital markets. Participants have cheered some recent structural and regulatory changes but they do not seem to have been enough so far to trigger more initial public offerings. We discuss what the government and others need to do to make the UK's public equity market as vigourous as a grey squirrel.