Indian corporate bond issuance this year looks set to surpass 2013 and last year as expensive bank loans force companies seeking funding to try their luck in capital markets. So far, they have not been disappointed.
Indian firms have raised 335.9 billion rupees (US$5.40 billion) via short-and long-term corporate debt in a little over a month and a half this year, well on their way to matching the total of 2.3 trillion rupees raised in each of the previous two years, according to Thomson Reuters data.
Bank loans are relatively expensive even after the Reserve Bank of India reduced its key policy rate last month to 7.75 percent from 8 percent. Only three out of 45 domestic commercial banks have lowered rates, with most arguing they cannot cut costs for borrowers as they are facing tight cash conditions.
The central bank is loath to inject more funds into the overnight money market, saying it is providing sufficient funding, and that banks are simply not managing their cash well.
The average base rate of 10.25 percent at state-run banks is 100 to 150 basis points higher than the Reuters 10-year benchmark corporate bond rate, which has fallen to 8.33 percent from 8.58 percent at the end of last year. Yields have dropped on a fall in inflation, expectations of more RBI cuts and a surge in buying from foreign investors.
“The current spread between corporate bond yields and base rates is the maximum in at least the last few years,” said Sandeep Bagla, associate director at Trust Group, a brokerage and wealth management company.
The low yields have attracted new — and rare — issuers, which further bodes well for issuance this year. Among them in recent months have been Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd, Jindal Steel and Power Ltd and Nuclear Power Corp of India Ltd.
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