On February 23, the National Association of Financial Market Institutional Investors (NAFMII) issued the “Bulletin on the Situation of Issuance in the Market of Debt Financing Tools in 2015” (hereinafter referred to the Bulletin). Specifically, Industrial Bank (IB) underwrote the issued debt financing tools of RMB 384.245 billion in 2015, ranking No. 1 among all joint-stock banks in terms of the undertaking scale. This is the fourth consecutive year that IB tops the list.
At present, China becomes the 3rd largest debt market, next to US and Japan, around the world. As shown in the Bulletin, the undertaking value of the 41 lead undertakers totaled RMB 5.43 trillion in 2015, up by 31.43% YoY, and ICBC, CCB, BOC, ABC and IB took the top five positions in terms of the undertaking value. The total number of debt financing tools undertaken reached 4,581, up by 33.36% YoY, and SPDB, IB, CCB, ICBC and CMB took the top five positions in terms of the number of debt financing tools undertaken.
According to the introduction of General Manager Dai Xiaoyuan of the Investment Banking Department of IB, in recent years, the bank has been among the first group of pilot institutions for products such as medium-term notes, non-public tailored tools, and assets-backed notes in succession, and successfully offered the first short-term financing bonds of a wholly foreign-owned enterprise in the inter-bank market, the collection notes of the largest scale and for the greatest number of issuers, and the super short-term financing bond of the largest scale in the market. Now, the debt financing tools offered by IB cover the following varieties: short-term financing bonds, medium-term notes, non-financial SME collection notes, super short-term financing bonds, non-public tailored debt financing tools, assets-backed notes, high-yield bonds, merger and acquisition notes, perpetual notes, project revenue notes, etc.
With the unveiling of the reform on the supply side, the bond market plays an important role in the campaign to eliminate a distorted financial market, form an effective yield curve and guide the reasonable capital allocation. Meanwhile, the “hierarchical and classified” registration and offering management system for the debt financing tools, which has been in gestation for a long time, will also be put into use soon.
Dai Xiaoyuan believes that the “hierarchical and classified” system will bring great convenience to financing of enterprises, reduce their financing cost, and improve the efficiency of resource allocation by the bond market for the real economy. As a main force in China’s bond underwriting market, IB has kept improving the service procedure by organizing sand table exercise for customer service and implementing three-level linked service mechanism (head office, branch and sub-branch), given quick response to customer service, provided quality bond undertaking service for enterprises, and increased direct financing to boost the development of enterprises.