News
Flexigroup says including green tranches all the way down the capital stack of its latest asset-backed securities (ABS) transaction was the best deployment of qualifying assets. The issuer says ‘dark-green’ investors remain thin on the ground in ABS transactions but it still benefited from its innovation in the green-bond space.
Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CommBank) believes it achieved all the objectives it set for its issuance of the first residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS) deal to use the Australian overnight index average (AONIA) reference rate. The bank wanted to respond to regulatory guidance from the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) with a broadly distributed benchmark transaction that also provided capital relief.
The return of 10-year issuance opportunities in the Australian corporate market brought another household name – Qantas Airways (Qantas) – to market on 20 November. Transaction sources say the deal had broad support domestically and abroad, and also featured a landmark for retail investor involvement in domestic debt-capital markets.
As a growing group of borrowers become seasoned issuers in the green, social and sustainability (GSS) bond market, participants’ attention is increasingly turning to ongoing reporting on use of proceeds and sustainable assets. New South Wales Treasury Corporation (TCorp) took a lead position on reporting in October and followed a few weeks later with a second GSS bond.
Alessandro Pagani, head of the mortgage and structured finance team at Loomis Sayles in Boston, visited Australia in November to discuss the global securitisation market with local investors and to get an update on Australian structured finance. KangaNews sat down with Pagani to hear about the securitisation asset class in a challenging investment environment, the appeal of Australian assets and the challenges of developing a broader collateral base for this market.
Greater execution certainty for unrated corporate issuers in Australia encouraged South Africa’s Woolworths Holdings to explore public market issuance for its Australian subsidiaries, David Jones Finance (David Jones) and Country Road. The parent company was eager to diversify the debt funding of its Australian business into capital markets, in line with group funding strategy.
ANZ Banking Group (ANZ) intends to maintain its commitment to green, social and sustainability (GSS) bond issuance, having printed its first such deal in tier-two format in the euro market. The issuer says use-of-proceeds deals are as applicable to capital issuance as senior debt and can even help diversify the investor base as the bank fulfils an increased tier-two requirement.
Port of Melbourne says overwhelming investor support for its latest domestic transaction enabled a substantial upsize. The A$550 million (US$374.4 million) seven-year transaction comes after the issuer placed a multi-tranche US$602.8 million equivalent deal in the US private placement market in April this year.
Natixis unveiled its “green weighting factor” (GWF) on 23 September, with the claim that this makes it the first financial institution to monitor and manage the climate impact of its whole balance sheet. Following a recent visit to Australia, Orith Azoulay, global head of the green and sustainability hub at Natixis in Paris, spoke to KangaNews about how the GWF allocates and adjusts financing to deals based on their ‘greenness’.
Deal sources say Citibank Sydney Branch (Citibank Sydney)’s debut domestic deal attracted significant demand from Australia and Asia as the issuer was able to capitalise on a brief pause in Australian dollar financial institution (FI) issuance at the beginning of November.
Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CommBank) is seeking to demonstrate the viability of the Australian Overnight Index Average (AONIA) as an alternative reference rate (ARR) to the securitisation market through a first-ever residential mortgage-backed securities (RMBS) deal linked to the benchmark. The issuer says it is confident the market is ready for this type of issuance and expects all its future RMBS issuance to be AONIA-linked.
National Australia Bank (NAB) tested domestic appetite for longer tier-two tenor with its first deal since Australian total loss-absorbing capacity (TLAC) rules were finalised. NAB says the support for the deal’s 12-year non-call seven (12NC7) duration illustrates underlying appetite for Australian major-bank credit in the tier-two space.