S. Korea’s corporate bond sale rebounds in September

SEOUL, Oct. 22 (Xinhua) — South Korea’s corporate bond sale rebounded last month due to strong funding demand from both industrial and financial companies, financial watchdog data showed Tuesday.
The issuance of corporate bonds jumped 59.9 percent over the month to 31.53 trillion won (22.9 billion U.S. dollars) in September, after falling in single digits in August, according to the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS).
Bonds, sold by industrial companies, more than doubled to 3.07 trillion won (2.2 billion dollars) in September from a month earlier.
Financial companies-issued bonds soared 59.0 percent to 26.76 trillion won (19.4 billion dollars), while the issuance of asset-backed securities (ABS) gained 13.9 percent to 1.7 trillion won (1.2 billion dollars) last month.
The country’s central bank lowered its benchmark interest rate by 25 basis points to 3.25 percent in October amid high expectations for the rate reduction.
Equity financing, including initial public offering (IPO) and rights issuance, stood at 111.1 billion won (80.6 million dollars) in September, down 71.0 percent compared to the previous month. ■