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Saturday, 20th April 2024 |
| ABS listings on ISE are buoyant with strong deal pipeline |
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| Carol O’Sullivan gives an update on developments in specialist debt listings on the Irish Stock Exchange,referring to the smooth introduction of the Prospectus Directive last July, which has led to an increase in corporate debt listings. |
The listing of securitised debt products has been a phenomenal success story for the Irish Stock Exchange (ISE). The ISE has a large dedicated team for the listing of debt securities, established in 1999. As with all European listing authorities, the ISE operates under the Prospectus Directive. The ISE has published its own guidelines, derived from the applicable European legislation for the listing of asset backed securities, bonds, warrants and covered bonds. Applications for listing take approximately two weeks to complete with the ISE taking just three days to review the first draft of a document and two days for each subsequent draft. The process is very professional and streamlined and of course, in these days of rapidly advancing technology, electronic.
Davy is recognised as Ireland’s leading institutional and corporate securities firm. Our large team acts as listing agent on a variety of deals. We are pleased to include many blue chip names among our clients.
The implementation of the Prospectus Directive has gone very smoothly since last July. This is to the credit of the ISE, which was very active in contributing at EU level to the consultation process of the Prospectus Directive. The result was that the disclosure requirements of the Prospectus Directive are very similar to those in use by the ISE, especially in relation to wholesale debt, prior to 1 July 2005.
As securitisation has become an increasingly popular funding route for global issuers, the ISE has reaped the benefits through its pro-active and commercial approach. There are an impressive 10,000 debt securities (approximate figure) listed on the ISE. 2005 saw a staggering 54 per cent increase in new listings on the previous year. Trends in the products coming to list appear to follow trends reported generally in the industry. Asset backed securities (ABS) do constitute the majority of the Irish listed debt market with the ISE recognised as the leading European stock exchange for the listing of ABS products.
In line with European trends, we are seeing many commercial mortgage backed securities and CDOs coming to list. Also, with the growth of the Irish covered bond market, driven in part by Basle II and the demands of investors, the ISE is seeing issuers avail of its specific listing guidelines for covered bonds. Davy already acts as listing agent to one key issuer in the market, which will see tranches of securities list over the next few years, as it raises funds from its programme. We expect that more listings will be forthcoming as this market develops. The nature of the deals is also developing in the Irish market with the first whole business securitisation listing in March of this year. Davy was pleased to act as listing agent to the deal.
Corporate debt listings are increasing in number, particularly since the implementation of the Prospectus Directive, and MTN programmes created by both Irish and European issuers have featured strongly in our listing numbers as have credit linked notes.
Our expectation is that listings of debt products on the ISE will continue to show significant growth through the remainder of 2006 and beyond. |
Carol O’Sullivan is head of fund listings at Davy Corporate Finance.
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