Corporate bond issuance doubles

By Dat Nguyen October 29, 2020 | 05:20 pm PT

An employee counts Vietnamese banknotes at a bank in Hanoi. Photo by VnExpress/Giang Huy.

Corporate bond issuance in the first nine months doubled year-on-year to VND324.67 trillion ($14 billion) amid falling deposit interest rates.

The value is 12.6 percent of Vietnam’s GDP, showing this investment channel, along with stock, are becoming more popular in Vietnam other than the traditional deposit channel, financial data provider FiinGroup said in a recent report.

Real estate led with 32.2 percent of issuance value, with VND12 trillion worth of bonds issued by real estate giant Vinhomes with a coupon rate of 9.5-10 percent a year.

Banking followed with nearly 29 percent of issuance value, with BIDV, VIB and HDBank major issuers.

FiinGroup analysts said that the surge in issuance value came as the State Bank of Vietnam tightened medium- and long-term loans, urging businesses to raise money through bonds to restructure their debts amid the pandemic.

Industry insiders have said that as bonds offer a coupon rate of around 10 percent, higher than deposit interest rates of 5.8 percent (down from 7 percent earlier this year) for 12-month period, investors are leaning toward the former.