CBA dominates the US s144A market

The US s144A market has become very popular with Australian borrowers since the onset of the GFC and the Euromarket has been almost shunned. The Euromarket has traditionally been Australian borrowers' preferred market for funding, with issuance there exceeding issuance in the US by a factor of three or more, for most of this decade.   

This changed last year when issuance in the s144A market exceeded that in the Euromarket at the equivalent of A$46.8 billion to A$38.4 billion, based on currency conversions at the time of issuance.

The contrast is even starker this year, with issuance of A$73.7 billion in the US s144A market against only A$33.7 billion in the Euromarket. It has been easier to get away large deals in the US market and the Euromarket has struggled with an unfavourable basis swap, as mentioned above.

Given the issuance by Westpac into the US s144A market this year, at just over the equivalent of A$12 billion, one might think that Westpac has been the largest issuer out of the big four into that market.

But this honour in fact goes to the CBA, with the equivalent of just under A$16 billion of bonds issued, as the chart below shows.

National Australia Bank and ANZ have been comparatively small issuers, at A$8 billion and less than A$4 billion, respectively.