Global corporate bond sales set an annual record as companies lock in borrowing costs that forecasters said are bound to rise.
Softbank Corp, Amazon.com Inc and Medtronic Inc were among borrowers that helped push issuance to US$3.974 trillion past the previous 2012 peak of US$3.973 trillion, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Sales in the US have already reached an unprecedented US$1.5 trillion.
Issuance defied predictions of a slowdown made by underwriters from Bank of America Corp to Barclays PLC as a decline in benchmark costs that no one foresaw pushed yields to record lows.
While central banks in Europe and Japan have stepped up their own stimulus efforts, the likelihood the US Federal Reserve would boost interest rates has fueled company borrowings worldwide.
“We’ve seen so much issuance just because everybody’s thinking that next year’s going to be the year when rates start rising,” Leader Capital Corp fixed-income analyst Nathan Barnard said on Wednesday in a telephone interview. “It’s cheap financing still, so why not do that?”
Investors are poised to earn 7.67 percent this year on debt from the most creditworthy to the riskiest borrowers worldwide, according to the Bank of America Merrill Lynch Global Corporate Index. Those would be the largest gains since a 10.78 percent return in 2012, the index data show.
Chinese companies issued a record amount of securities this year, boosted by the Chinese central bank’s decision to ease monetary policy as it sought to ensure economic growth would meet a 7.5 percent annual target.
Japanese wireless carrier Softbank sold ¥400 billion (US$3.4 billion) 2.5 percent, seven-year bonds yesterday, Bloomberg data show.
US corporate bond offerings were bolstered this week by Medtronic’s US$17 billion sale and Amazon’s US$6 billion offering, Bloomberg data show.
Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (阿里巴巴), a Hangzhou, China-based company, raised US$8 billion in dollar-denominated bonds last month, its debut offering and Asia’s largest ever US dollar-denominated bond sale, Bloomberg data show.
JPMorgan Chase & Co is the top underwriter of international and US bond sales this year, Bloomberg data show. Deutsche Bank AG has managed the most euromarket bond offers, at US$165.5 billion, and HSBC Holdings PLC underwrote the most Asia-Pacific bonds excluding those issued in Japan, the data show.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained