News
TD Securities (TD) and RBC Capital Markets (RBCCM) have reasserted their traditional market-leading positions as intermediaries in the Kangaroo market in 2014, retaining the top two spots in KangaNews's league tables for the year to date. The 22 banks to have led Kangaroo deals account for a total of A$25.9 billion (US$24.0 billion) in 2014 so far.
A significant increase in its common-equity tier-one (CET1) ratio was emphasised by Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CommBank) in its August 13 annual results presentation. The bank also reported a significant increase in its use of wholesale funding markets, with issuance coming in well above its expected maturity profile for the year while not reducing the deposit portion of total funding.
The new powers which enabled the UK's Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) to impose a one-year ban on the sale of contingent convertible (CoCo) securities to retail investors are referenced in the Australian Securities and Investments Commission (ASIC)'s submission to the Australian financial system inquiry (FSI).
Fisher & Paykel Finance (Fisher & Paykel) has priced NZ$283.25 million (US$239.19 million) via Q Card Trust – the first term securitisation of credit-card receivables in the Australasian market in at least a decade. The A1, A2 and A3 notes of the nine-tranche deal priced in line with guidance of 110, 120 and 130 basis points over swap respectively, its lead discloses.
The New Zealand government is targeting reduced compliance costs for issuers and wider availability of instruments in the local retail market through a number of new policy decisions. A clutch of policy updates were revealed by Craig Foss, New Zealand's minister of commerce, at the KangaNews New Zealand DCM Summit in Auckland on August 6.
Fisher & Paykel's new asset-backed credit-card deal - the first term deal of its type in Australasia - took centre stage during the week under review. Elsewhere, deal flow dropped off completely.
On August 6, ME Bank (BBB+/A3) mandated a series of institutional investor meetings to take place in Melbourne and Sydney on August 11 and 12 respectively in order to discuss a potential Basel III tier-two transaction in the Australian dollar market.
In the first of a regular series of commentaries following cash-rate decisions, KangaNews columnist, Warren Bird, reviews the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA)'s August 5 statement to reveal the key changes according to his rigorous three-category analysis of the reserve bank's thinking.
Expected ratings have been assigned to an asset-backed programme based on credit-card receivables originated by Consumer Finance, a subsidiary of Fisher & Paykel Finance (Fisher & Paykel). The transaction's arranger says this is the first credit-card securitisation in the Australasian market.
The prospects for issuance of green securitised product in Australia are being explored on the back of a number of breakthroughs for green assets, including the growth of socially responsible investment (SRI), Australia's first green-bond issue and a landmark US securitisation from Toyota Financial Service (Toyota). But Australian market participants acknowledge that local asset-backed deal flow in green format is likely a distant prospect.
Scarcity value and a lack of competing supply helped Wells Fargo & Company (Wells Fargo) (A+/A2/AA-) attract solid support from the Australian market for its A$900 million (US$836.4 million) dual-tranche, five-year bond priced on August 1. However, the deal's lead managers say strong competition from offshore markets continues to limit the appeal of the Kangaroo market to offshore financial institutions (FIs).