经济学人下载:Verizon的大手笔

bond markets

债券市场

A big number from Verizon

Verizon的大手笔

Companies are still taking advantage of low yields to raise debt 

各公司仍在利用低收益率提高债务水平

Sep 14th 2013 |From the print edition

DEBT crisis? What debt crisis? The biggest corporate-bond issue ever was completed this week. Verizon Communications, an American telecoms group, issued a whopping $49 billion of bonds in order to finance the buy-out of Vodafone’s stake in its wireless operations. That shattered the previous record, Apple’s paltry $17 billion issue earlier this year.

债务危机？什么样的债务危机？史上最大的企业债券发行本周完成了。一家美国电信集团Verizon通讯为了支付沃达丰持有的无线业务股权买断费用，发行了高达490亿美元的债券。

这打破了此前的纪录，苹果在今年早些时候发行了现在看来微不足道的170亿美元的债券。

The scale of Verizon’s offering may be uNPRecedented, but its foray into the bond markets is anything but. In the first eight months of this year $1.4 trillion of corporate bonds were issued worldwide, according to Dealogic, a data provider, compared with $1.3 trillion in the same period of 2012. Firms have been keen to lock in long-term financing at low yields, particularly since borrowing costs started rising after the Federal Reserve hinted in May at slowing its asset purchases.

Verizon的发行规模可谓是前所未有的，但是这不是其首次尝试债券市场了。根据数据提供商Dealogic的数据，今年前8个月世界范围内有1.4万亿公司债券发行，2012年同期金额为1.3万亿。各公司一直热衷于以低收益率参与长期融资，尤其是自从美联储五月暗示放缓其资产购买之后，借贷成本开始上升。

Oil and gas companies have been particularly enthusiastic issuers, according to Marcus Hiseman of Morgan Stanley, especially in the “Yankee” market where foreign businesses sell bonds, priced in dollars, mainly to American investors. Previously many foreign firms would issue debt in euros and swap the proceeds into dollars, but regulatory restrictions on banks make that much more expensive these days. This year 72% of investment-grade issuance has been in dollars, compared with 58% in 2009, according to Morgan Stanley.

据摩根士丹利的Marcus Hiseman表示，石油和天然气公司一直是特别积极的发行者，尤其是在美国市场，外国公司主要向美国投资者售卖以美元计价的债券。此前，许多外国公司用欧元发行债券，之后将受益转换成美元，但是对银行的监管限制规定使得这种做法在现在变得很昂贵。根据摩根士丹利的数据，今年72%的投资级发行都是以美元计价，相比之下去年只有58%。

If companies fear that bond yields are set to rise (meaning that bond prices will fall), why are investors so keen to buy? There was plenty of demand to absorb the Verizon issue, for instance: orders reportedly reached $100 billion. One reason is that corporate bonds offer a spread (excess interest rate) over government bonds that is still attractive in historical terms. The average yield on ten-year investment-grade debt is 3.5%, compared with just 2.95% on Treasury bonds of the same maturity. The sheer size of the Verizon issue required it to be more generous towards investors, as did its BBB+ rating from Standard & Poor’s, towards the bottom end of the investment-grade category. The firm offered a yield of over 5% on its ten-year bonds, for example, more than two percentage points above the equivalent Treasury issue.

如果企业担心债券收益率上升（这意味着债券价格会下跌），那么投资者为何这么热衷于购买呢？买入Verizon发行的债券需求很大，例如，据报道订单达到了1000亿美元。一个原因是企业债券相比国债提供一个差额（更高的利率），从历史上看，仍然具有吸引力。十年期投资级债券的平均收益率是3.5%，而相同期限的国债收益率只有2.95%。Verizon发行债券的规模如此之大，这要求其对投资者提供更高的收益，标准普尔对其作出的评级是BBB+，是投资级类别的最低等级。该公司十年期债券的收益率超过5%，比国债的收益率高了两个百分点。

Many central banks, which hold a large part of their reserves in dollars, remain enthusiastic buyers of corporate debt. In addition, many investors in corporate debt are specialist fund managers who aim to beat the benchmark specific to their asset class, points out Paul Young of Citigroup; they care more about whether they pick the right bonds, as they are able to hedge the underlying interest-rate risk.

许多持有大量美元储蓄存款的中央银行仍然热衷于购买企业债券。此外，花旗集团的样子刚指出，许多企业债券的投资者是专业的基金经理，他们的目标是打破特定资产类别的基准，他们有能力抵消相关利率风险，所以他们更关心是否挑选了正确的债券。 

The influx of money nonetheless causes some to worry. The corporate-bond market is a lot less liquid than it used to be, thanks largely to the effect of regulations on the willingness of banks to hold large inventories of corporate debt. This could cause a problem should bond investors want to sell their holdings in a rush. For the moment, however, that does not seem likely. Corporate balance-sheets look strong and the default rate over the past 12 months, even on speculative debt, was just 2.9%, according to Moody’s, another ratings agency.

资金潮仍然引起了一些担忧。企业债券市场比起以前流动性变差了，这在很大程度上是由于对银行持有大量企业债券所出台的法规限制。这可能会导致债券投资者想要急于出售其所持债券。然而，就目前而言，看起来不是这样。企业资产负债表看起来很漂亮，根据另一评级机构穆迪的数据，在过去的12个月，就算是投机性债务的违约率也只有2.9%。