Investors resigned to funding buybacks

摘要

Investors are turning a blind eye to shareholder-friendly activity by borrowers, as ballooning portfolios make the once heated topic of leveraging up to buy back stock a barely acknowledged risk when it comes to pricing bonds. In the past week close to US$30bn of orders poured in for US$10.35bn of bond issuance by cisco, pepsico and juniper networks, three corporates that came to market either to raise funds for share repurchases or, in Pepsi's case, to pay down commercial paper ahead of what analysts expect will be more CP issuance to help pay for its planned US$8.7bn buyback and dividend payout to shareholders this fiscal year.