Flood becomes trickle: Only one corporate bond issuance in April

The VND671 billion ($28.60 million), issuance was done by investment firm North Star Holdings with a maturity of 16 months and a coupon rate of 14%, the highest so far this year, according to financial data provider FiinRatings.

In March there had been 13 issuances that mopped up nearly VND18 trillion.

As of May 4 there were 98 companies delaying bond redemption worth VND128.5 trillion.

This implies that the difficulties for the bond market, reported since last year, would likely continue, FiinRatings said.

Last month the majority of bond issuances were redeemed prematurely by banks. The redemption value surged 5.6 times from March and doubled year-on-year.

Banks that bought back the most bonds were VIB, Sacombank, VPBank and BIDV.