A $13 Billion Plunge in Bond Sales Hints at Pain for EM Credit
- Emerging-market companies sell smallest sum of debt since 2016
- Further Fed hikes stand to keep risky EM firms from borrowing
This article is for subscribers only.
The pipeline of company debt from emerging markets is running dry as major central banks continue to raise borrowing costs and investors grow increasingly wary after a series of high-profile corporate blowups.
Businesses from developing economies have sold just $60 billion of global bonds so far this year — a drop of about 18%, or $13 billion, from the same period of last year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. That’s the smallest sum to start any year since 2016, just after the Federal Reserve embarked on its last rate-hiking cycle.