The Investment Industry Association of Canada has released An Issue of Debt 2Q08 – statistics on issuance and trading in Canadian debt markets.
Of interest is the issuance of Maple bonds (issued by foreign companies in Canadian currency):
Corporate issuance remained lofty in Q2, despite widening credit spreads experienced early in the quarter. Financings totaled $24 billion with over 60% of issuance deriving from the financial sector— an increase of 33% from Q1 but still off the pace with last year’s figures (Chart 1). The pull back has largely been attributed to the lack of Maple bond offerings thus far in 2008. For the first half of 2008, Maple bond issuance has totaled just $500 million as compared to over $23 billion during the same period in 2007 (Chart 2).
