Asian issuers rush to beat Fed

摘要

Asian issuers scrambled to lock in cheap credit last week, rushing out US$5.9bn of US dollar bonds on the off-chance that the US Federal Open Market Committee would use its monthly meeting to announce its first rate rise since 2006. India's reliance communications and clp power honc konc financinc had kicked off the week, each with a US$300m trade on Monday, before china national offshore oil corp followed with a US$3.8bn three-part trade, and then binhai investment with US$200m, bank of india with US$750m and Indonesian developer jababeka international with a US$70m tap of its existing 2019s. India's bharat petroleum rounded things off late on Wednesday. The FOMC ultimately held the Federal Reserve Rate at 0.25%, unchanged since December 2008, while weak first-quarter data showing US GDP growth of just 0.2% year-on-year lent support to those who expect the rate to stay lower for longer.