Record Bond Sales Showing Lessons of 1997 Learned: Asean Credit

Southeast Asian companies are on track for an eighth straight year of record bond sales as local investors provide protection from a repeat of 1997, when the region’s currencies collapsed and global banks fled.

Bond sales will rise as much as 20 percent from last year’s $101 billion of local and dollar-denominated notes, according to CIMB Group Holdings Bhd., the top underwriter of domestic debt in the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or Asean. DBS Group Holdings Ltd. and Maybank Kim Eng Holdings Ltd. see a repeat of last year’s 48 percent gain. PTT Global Chemical Pcl of Thailand’s and PT Bank Rakyat Indonesia, the nation’s third-biggest lender, are lining up to sell debt.