Zoals al vorige week op deze draadjes vermeld door jullie razende reporter :-)
FT.com
October 14, 2012 6:39 pm
Yield hunters look to tier two debt
Banks are taking advantage of strong investor demand for high-yielding assets to issue large quantities of a form of riskier debt as lenders race to meet new regulatory requirements on capital.
The boom is particularly noticeable in Europe, where last month $7.9bn of so-called tier two debt was issued by banks including Erste Bank, Danske and Rabobank, making it the busiest month for the region since May 2008, according to data from Dealogic. European banks have issued more than $25bn of tier two debt so far this year, surpassing the amount raised for the whole of last year and taking it close to 2010 levels.
Banks in Brazil, Australia and Russia have also been actively issuing tier two debt this year, taking the global total to $68bn for the year to date.
The boom in tier two capital is being driven in part by regulatory considerations, said Gerald Podobnik, head of capital solutions at Deutsche Bank. Under the Basel III reforms, banks have to hold capital equal to 2 per cent of their assets in either tier one or tier two securities on top of their minimum core tier one requirement of 7 per cent.
With share prices still quite low and regulators still working out the rules for tier one capital, many banks are opting to fill their holes with tier two capital.
Since the start of the eurozone crisis, many bankers have worried that they would be unable to sell tier two capital, because it ranks below senior debt in a bank’s capital structure. In a default or insolvency situation, tier two bondholders would be near the bottom of the list of creditors to be paid back.
However, investors are being tempted back into the market by the promise of higher returns and the dearth of other investment options.
“The coupon is higher on tier two than on senior debt as investors are taking on greater risk on solvency but they are being compensated. So in a low-yield environment where government bonds are only offering, say, 2 per cent, securities that are offering 5 per cent to 6 per cent look attractive,” said Mr Podobnik.
Kapil Damani of the capital markets structuring group at BNP Paribas said recent transactions had seen strong demand from wealthy Asians as well as European institutional investors.
“Some of these investors have been reallocating money from equity into fixed income and are then looking at a migration down the capital structure of banks rather than take more speculative assets,” said Mr Damani.
Issuing more subordinated debt also helps cushion senior unsecured bondholders, who under new European Commission “bail-in” rules due to be effective by 2018 are facing the prospect of having to accept losses on their debt in the event a bank fails.
Mr Damani said the recent “renaissance” in tier two issuance was also being driven by banks seeking to beat another Basel III rule – from January 1 2013 all new tier two debt must include loss-absorbing features such as a haircut in case of insolvency. In addition much of the tier two debt issued in the 2007 boom is approaching first call dates.