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Jamie Grant, head of Asian fixed income at First State Investments (First State) in Hong Kong, talks to KangaNews about opportunities in an Asian debt market that continues to develop scale and diversity, the Asian investor mindset and how the region will react to heightened global uncertainty.

Global events of  2016 have, among many other consequences, served to make Australia’s political environment look relatively stable by comparison. Australia may have developed a habit of changing prime ministers on a more regular basis than is strictly desirable – five times in less than a decade, only twice as the result of  elections – but political risk has never been high on investors’ checklists when it comes to Australia.

In January 2017, KangaNews asked Australia and New Zealand’s most significant government-sector borrowers to share their views on funding strategy, liquidity conditions, issuance avenues and demand profile. The sovereign, agency and semi-government issuers explain how their strategies attempt to deliver consistency even as they adapt to both market realities and the ever-changing nature of their funding tasks.

At the start of 2017, New Zealand’s economy and bond market are playing a role that has become increasingly familiar when it comes to the comparison with Australia: the same, but different. Both countries are on high alert for the impact of global developments on their trading status, but New Zealand’s rates environment is starting to swing towards a potential upwards cycle.

Westpac Institutional Bank (Westpac) and KangaNews are conducting a year-long project to gauge the opinions of international credit investors on Australasian-origin product. In part two, a group of US private placement (USPP) investors met during the annual industry conference in Boca Raton.

The great rotation, the end of the bond bull run, Brexit, Donald Trump’s election and the rise of populism: during his annual trip to Australia in January, Vanguard’s New-York based global head of fixed income, Greg Davis, shared his insights on all these topics – and more – with KangaNews.

The November 2028 syndicated benchmark bond for the Australian Office of Financial Management (AOFM) (AAA/Aaa/AAA) priced on 22 February. Initial price guidance was 13.5-16.5 basis points over the implied bid yield for the primary 10-year Treasury bond futures contract.

Australia’s latest domestic corporate issuer tells KangaNews that robust demand and solid momentum in the nonfinancial corporate space provided it with an unprecedented level of execution confidence. The recent trend for 10-year tenor and more competitive pricing further drives domestic appeal.

Participants in the world’s first government-sector blockchain bond issuance trial – Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CommBank) and Queensland Treasury Corporation (QTC) – say the experience highlights the extent to which distributed-ledger technology could improve capital-market functionality.

Issuers’ and investors’ long-term incentives to support local-market development are not necessarily aligned with their nearterm drivers. Intermediaries may have to bear the load.

Featuring the work of an asset manager who is using his financial-markets experience to contribute positively to The Deaf Society of New South Wales – an organisation with the goal of supporting equity for deaf people.