July is shaping up to be the second poorest month for corporate bond issuance in the domestic market so far this year. With only two business days left in the month, total issuance at the end of last week amounted to A$5.5 billion.During April, the weakest month for the year so far, borrowers placed only A$2.8 billion of bonds during the month.July is notable for two seemingly divergent trends. Kangaroo issuance (foreign borrowers selling Australian dollar debt to domestic investors) totalled A$4.0 billion, or 73 per cent of issuance for the month so far. This is well ahead of the long run average of 37 per cent.Secondly, true corporate issuance for the month totalled A$725 million. This doesn't sound like very much, and doesn't compare particularly well with the €650 million in bonds sold by Wesfarmers on its own during the week, but it amounts to 13 per cent of the July issuance total.In terms of annual true corporate issuance rates, 2006 was the last year in which a better result was achieved.The level of kangaroo and true corporate issuance for the month is anomalous, and can be accounted for by a lack of issuance from domestic financial institutions, which account for 50 per cent of year-to-date issuance. Banks have been active borrowers in offshore markets, selling the equivalent of A$7.5 billion over the month.National Australia Bank (rated AA-) raised US$1.75 billion for three years on the US s144A market last week. The funds were priced at 113 basis points over Libor/swap and would have swapped back into Australian dollars at around 150 bps over swap.ANZ National also raised US$750 million in the same market with an October 2015 maturity. The bonds were priced at 158 bps over US Treasury bonds.Wesfarmers, meanwhile, (rated A-) sold its €650 million in debt on a ten-year term, with the order book said to be considerably larger.Wesfarmers advised the ASX that the funds were swapped back into Australian dollars with a fixed coupon of 5.8 per cent. This equates to 210 bps over mid-swaps and is roughly comparable with the 165 bps over that which Wesfarmers paid for seven-year funds on the domestic market in March.Interestingly, 10-year credit default swaps for Wesfarmers were quoted at 145 bps last week, with an implied credit rating of BBB. All in all, this suggests that Wesfarmers was able to raise a substantial volume of debt by going offshore, but pricing wasn't wonderful, which may well explain the size of the order book.