Singapore's corporate debt climbs 18%

Thanks to an 82% increase in short-term debt issuance, Singapore's corporate debt increased 18% in 2013 to S$272.4 billion.

According to the Singapore Corporate Debt Market Review by the Monetary Authority of Singapore, nearly a quarter of the debt issued last year was structured or securitised instruments, with Islamic debt making up S$1.1 billion of that.

However, the amount of long-term debt issuance, or those with more than a year tenor, dropped by 15%. This is liekly due to many issuers in Singapore front-loading their long-term funding needs in 2012 to secure low borrowing costs.

"Issuers also focused on issuing shorter tenor debt in 2013 amidst market uncertainty," the report said.

The start of renminbi (RMB) clearing arrangements in May 2013 has also helped catalyse Singapore''s offshore RMB bond market, resulting in five offshore RMB bonds, totalling RMB 4.5 billion, successfully coming to market.

It was also found Singapore's corporate debt market continued to attract a diverse range of issuers last year. Financial institutions were the leading issuers, making up 27.9% of the market. They were followed by government agencies and statutory boards (24.5%), and corporations (18.8% including property and 17.1% excluding property).

Non-Singapore dollar structured and securitised debt issuance combined accounted for 10% (S$15.3 billion) of all non-SGD debt issuance in 20 13, the report added.

The report also found approximately S$1.8 billion of non-SGD structured and securitised debt stemmed from asset securitisation transactions.

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