Panoramic: The effect of globalisation on corporate bond valuations

Posted on 16 April 2013 by Gordon Harding

Corporate bonds have had an incredible run over the past few years. A combination of sub-par growth, the sovereign crisis in Europe and massive amounts of QE on a global scale has driven government bond yields down to historically low levels. At the same time, corporate bond spreads have tightened significantly from the crazy levels we saw in 2009. This has meant double-digit annualised returns from parts of the investment grade market (as you can see from the chart Richard posted yesterday), albeit with some spread volatility in ‘risk-off’ periods.

How do corporate bonds generate similar returns from here? Well, there’s no doubt it’s going to be difficult. Given the duration of the iBoxx £ Corporate index of just under 8 years, we’d need to see yields fall roughly 1% further. So, either 10 year gilt yields would have to rally to less than 1% (from today’s 1.7% level) with spreads staying broadly flat, or spreads would need to tighten significantly with gilt yields stable (or of course any other combination of gilt yield/credit spread moves equivalent to about a 1% fall in overall yield).

Focussing purely on the credit spread and using history as a guide, there certainly is room for further tightening – for example, the spread of the BofA Merrill Lynch BBB Sterling Corporate & Collateralised index was 292bps at the end of March, 191bps wider than the pre-crisis tight of 101bps at the end of May 2007. But what could be the catalyst for such a tightening of spreads?

In the latest version of our Panoramic series we look at what drives the relationship between corporate and government bond pricing, how this has been changing over time and what might ultimately lead to corporates trading at even tighter levels than before the financial crisis.

Old Lady sells her bonds

Posted on 15 April 2013 by Richard Woolnough

Back in 2009 the Bank of England (the Old Lady of Threadneedle Street) began buying a portfolio of investment grade bonds to provide funding to UK corporates, to aid liquidity in the corporate bond market and to supplement their QE purchases of gilts. Last Friday this investor sold its last corporate bonds.

This has been a great success from a profit point of view. The attached chart shows the total return of an index of non-financial corporate bonds over the period of the bank’s purchases and sales as well as an indication of their total holdings.

I believe its actions helped stabilise the corporate bond market in the UK by providing a backstop bid, therefore helping to reduce the cost of funding at the margin for issuers, and would have added to the effects of QE. However, empirically measuring these effects is hard to do – corporate bond markets that experienced no domestic support from their central banks appear to have performed similarly, and the debate on the true effectiveness of QE remains.

What is the primary lesson we have learned? I think it is that state intervention can work where markets are priced inefficiently. This is illustrated by the large profits the bank has made by buying an out of favour asset class from the private sector. It is probably a good base to have the state intervene where markets are inefficient, for example in areas such as healthcare, defence, law and order, and infrastructure. The danger comes when the state interferes to the detriment of an efficient market. From an economic point of view, aggressive trade barriers are the first thing that comes to mind where there would be a great deal of consensus from the left and right side of politics. Other actions may depend on your economic or political view. The best current example of this is the single European currency experiment. Does it aid a free market via price transparency and low transaction costs, or does it hinder efficiency by having one single interest rate and exchange rate for such diverse economies ?

The Old Lady’s portfolio of corporates has served her and the UK well because she bought them at cheap levels from distressed sellers. Unfortunately, this investor has a significantly bigger portfolio of gilts. The carry and mark to market on these looks great. However, turning this unrealised gain into a realised profit still remains a challenge. If she comes to sell, her position is likely to drive the market against her.

Heinz: Beans, Buffett and the return of animal spirits

Posted on 22 March 2013 by Stefan Isaacs

After years of inactivity, the combination of strong corporate balance sheets and cheap funding has sparked demand for takeover deals. The largest and highest profile deal this year has been the acquisition of H.J.Heinz by 3G Capital and Berkshire Hathaway. It is exactly the type of business that Berkshire Hathaway’s Chairman and CEO Warren Buffett typically goes for: profitable growth; a very recognisable brand; and years of emerging market growth forecast in the future.

Berkshire Hathaway and 3G Capital are buying Heinz for $72.50 per share, a 19 percent premium to the company’s previous record high stock price at the time the deal was announced in mid-February. Including debt assumption, the transaction was valued at $28 billion. Berkshire and 3G will each put up $4.4bn in equity for the deal along with $12.2bn in debt financing. Berkshire is also buying $8bn of preferred equity that pays 9%.

Let’s not beat around the bush. It’s a great company. The business has seen thirty one consecutive quarters of organic growth, stable EBITDA margins, owns a number of globally recognised brands and should be well positioned for future emerging market led growth. Despite this, some are questioning whether Buffett is overpaying for Heinz. So is the price of the deal justified?

The answer, at least in part, lies with cost of debt. The pro-forma capital structure (per the offering memorandum) looks like this:

PF Capital Structure	Sources ($m)	Net Debt/PF EBITDA
Cash	-1,250
1^stLien	10,500	3.87 x
2^ndLien	2,100	4.75 x
Rollover Notes	868	5.11 x
Total debt	12,218	5.11 x

Preferred Equity	8,000	8.46 x
Common Equity	8,240

Total	28,458

Current price talk on the first lien debt sits at $ Libor + 2.75% (floored at 1%) with the second lien at 4.5%. If this is finalised, the company will see an approximate blended interest cost of 3.9% on its new debt securities. Prior to the transaction, Heinz was rated as a solid investment grade business attracting a Baa2/BBB+ rating. Assuming the deal goes through, its new second lien notes are expected to be rated B1/BB-, some five notches lower than Heinz’s current rating, reflecting the much higher financial leverage and structural subordination.

It’s worth noting that through last year Heinz’s 6.25% 2030 bonds traded in a range of 4–5%, despite the much higher rating and lower financial leverage at the time; albeit some term premium is warranted given the longer dated nature of the debt. The bonds have since sold off in recognition of the greater risk – as things stand they will remain in place.

Now let’s compare the price action of the proposed debt financing to the preferred equity to be owned by Berkshire Hathaway. Whilst the paper is structurally subordinate to all other debt, it still sits ahead of some $8,240bn of common equity and attracts a cash coupon (which can be deferred) of 9% vs the 3.9% weighted average above. It’s also worth bearing in mind that the transaction has been structured to encourage the preferred equity to be retired, at least in part, ahead of both the first and second lien debt, potentially leaving bondholders with significantly less subordination than at day one. I’d argue that this is by far the most attractive (quasi) debt to invest in within the structure, though that is hardly surprising given that unlike Buffett, few of us can write a cheque of this magnitude.

As animal spirits return and the leveraged finance community falls over itself to lend to well known companies, the likely winners in the space will be the private equity community. Whilst we are nowhere near the levels of the great private equity binge of 2004-07, the value of takeovers in 2013 is already running well ahead of 2012. After years of corporate deleveraging, we may now be entering into a period of increased M&A activity. Company managers may find that if they aren’t willing to start leveraging up given the environment of extremely low borrowing costs, then investors like Buffett will do it for them.

The Heinz deal has been another recent shot across the bows of the bond market. Rising leverage has a longer term implication for credit markets, in that it is bad for credit quality. Bigger and bigger companies are clearly in play and this is something we will be keeping a very close eye on.

6 degrees of Kevin Bacon, 5 ways to catch a subscriber – consolidation in cable

Posted on 18 February 2013 by Matthew Russell

I’d been feeling pretty pleased with myself since last Saturday – I managed to get Sky TV, broadband and a landline installed in my flat. That was until earlier today, when after discussing some of the recent activity in this sector with our telecoms and media analyst, I was left feeling something of a technology dinosaur.

These three services sold as a single package is called a “triple play” offer. However, I have since discovered that this is so 2010. These days it’s increasingly about “quad play”, whereby consumers access video, broadband and voice services both inside and outside the home. Inside the home is provided by your cable, copper telephone line and/or satellite dish whilst outside connectivity is provided by a mobile network. The most visible example of this business model in the UK comes from Everything Everywhere (EE), mostly due to their……um……interesting adverts featuring Kevin Bacon. EE allows a subscriber to make voice calls, surf the internet and watch video content either at home or on the move via a combined mobile and fixed line broadband connection. Advances in mobile technology (4G) now mean that seamlessly streaming a film in your house on your iPad as you eat breakfast and then on your journey to work should be possible. This is the direction the industry is moving in the UK, with Vodafone, 3 and O2 expected to launch later in the year once they secure the necessary 4G spectrum that is currently being auctioned. In the US and portions of Western Europe it is already there.

So quad-play has a clear consumer proposition, i.e. ubiquitous and fast media consumption and connectivity from a single service provider. But what benefit do the telecom operators derive from this service? Firstly, they hope to stem the revenue declines and customer churn they have experienced over the past few years as a combination of competition and regulation have ground down prices. Secondly, quad play offers them a cost saving opportunity by shifting data traffic off their mobile networks and on to their fixed line infrastructure as fast as possible, either via an in-home WiFi point or a fibre optic link to the network towers outdoors.

Generally speaking, in each country there is an incumbent telecom operator offering both mobile and fixed line services (the UK is an almost unique exception after BT spun off O2). However, there is also a swathe of mobile-only and fixed line-only operators in each market and hence consolidation in the face of this strong industrial logic seems inevitable.

Last Wednesday, press reports suggested that Vodafone is considering acquiring cable operator assets. Two firms seem to be in their crosshairs for now; Kabel Deutschland and ONO (which operate in Germany and Spain, respectively). Both companies’ bonds rallied on the news that they could be taken over by a company with a much stronger balance sheet – they are both high yield whilst Vodafone is solidly investment grade. We think that Kabel Deutschland would be a better fit but either way Vodafone is clearly interested in fixed line assets across Europe. Last year it bought Cable & Wireless Worldwide in the UK and its interest could also stretch to alternative fixed line network operators like Jazztel (Spain), Versatel (Germany) and Fastweb (Italy).

Similarly, Liberty Global, an international cable operator, recently made a bid for UK cable operator Virgin Media. Virgin’s bonds were weaker on the news as LGI is a lower rated entity than Virgin and plans to leverage the business to a level commensurate with its other European cable investments (UnityMedia, UPC, Telenet). LGI already offers triple play services across its extensive European cable footprint but, along with the usual scale and tax synergies, Virgin brings with it significant experience in mobile as well as providing fibre optic connections to other UK operators’ mobile towers.

What can possibly come after quad-play? Internally we refer to what we believe is the next step as “penta-play”. This involves business models where service providers offer quad play delivery and services complemented by ownership of the content being consumed over those networks. The importance of control over content to a network provider was underlined by the US’s largest cable operator Comcast, with its $17bn purchase of the remaining 49% of NBC Universal it did not already own. If you think this is a US aberration, just think what would happen to Sky if it lost the Premiership contract and why BT has recently decided to park its tanks on Sky’s lawn with its recent expansion into Premiership football and rugby.

And after that? Well the regulators will probably demand these vertically integrated behemoths are broken up but that’s another story…. From a consumer’s point of view we think that consolidation and competition, to provide us with all our communication, entertainment and informational needs under one subscription, will eventually lead to lower prices for services previously purchased separately now being provided as a single service bundle. From a bond holder’s point of view the recent activity suggest M&A risk is on the rise with negative and positive impacts depending own whether you sit in the acquirer or the target, the better rated credit or the company with the weaker balance sheet, and your specific bond covenant protections.

European autos, stuck in reverse

Posted on 13 February 2013 by Stefan Isaacs

French auto manufacturers Peugeot and Renault report full year 2012 earnings this week. If Peugeot SA’s write down announced on Friday is anything to go by – when it took a €4.7bn non-cash charge – the outlook for the company and indeed other European focussed auto manufacturers continues to be a bleak one. European market conditions have been described by S&P as ‘dire’. Overcapacity and general economic uncertainty have resulted in utilisation rates below break-even profitability for a number of plants. Cash continues to be burnt and unsurprisingly, share prices don’t make for pleasant reading.

The need for an overhaul of the likes of Peugeot, Fiat and Renault remains acute. European light vehicle registrations are headed for a fifth consecutive year of declines (see chart below), Italian and Spanish registrations are at nearly half their pre-crisis levels, profit margins on compact vehicles are slim and Peugeot, Fiat and Renault are losing market share to investment grade rated manufacturers like BMW, VW and Daimler.

Struggling under a mountain of debt, Peugeot, Fiat and Renault find themselves in a non-too dissimilar position to that of the US auto manufacturers back in 2008/2009. Several years ago GM, Ford and Chrysler were able to successfully restructure, both inside and outside of bankruptcy, allowing them to close capacity, reduce over-indebtedness, renegotiate onerous union contracts and subsequently return to profitability even at levels of production significantly below those pre-crisis. That experience remains in stark contrast to European OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturers) who continue to labour under many of those same pressures whilst facing ongoing weak domestic demand.

Management continues to struggle to right-size their businesses some 5+ years into the financial crisis in the face of strong political pressure and a determination to avoid job losses. Ironically, the very interference that has hampered change in Europe has now led to Peugeot having to rely on French state support. But these choices cannot be put off into perpetuity and unwelcome decisions are inevitable. Until that point in time, losses will continue to mount, cash will be burnt and creditors will likely favour US over European OEM risk.

Contingent capital notes – bank equity’s best friend?

Posted on 15 January 2013 by Stefan Isaacs

As investors, the majority of our time is spent pricing risk with an increasing amount of that spent trying to value optionality. We’ve always had to price the optionality inherent in owning certain bonds. For instance what’s the likelihood of a call option sold to a bond issuer being exercised? What’s the likelihood of an early refinancing, or perhaps a change of control? These and other options are both risks and opportunities that credit investors will regularly have to consider and reconsider.

Some of the more recent options that credit investors have been forced to consider are those embedded within contingent capital notes or CoCos. These aren’t entirely new securities with Lloyds having exchanged bonds for CoCos back in 2009. Simplistically these ‘first generation’ CoCos are designed to behave like a traditional bond until a pre-defined trigger is breached. When triggered, first generation CoCo holders are forcibly converted into equity at pre-determined pricing, aiding the bank with its recapitalisation efforts. These instruments have found favour with the regulator not least because traditional subordinate capital instruments proved themselves almost entirely ineffective in providing loss absorbing capital.

However, since the issuance in 2009 the market has moved on somewhat and a new breed of CoCo has since emerged. Many of these newer instruments (see chart above) are designed to be written off entirely in the event of a trigger without the conversion into equity discussed above. This optionality has two obvious implications. Firstly, given that investors are written down to zero without equity conversion, any prospect of participating in a future recovery becomes null and void. Secondly (with the caveat that the quantum of issuance remains small for now), the prospect of a bond essentially performing the role of a non dilutive emergency rights issue has to be positive for all other stakeholders in the bank, not least common shareholders. And don’t forget that the majority of these instruments will see their coupons paid before tax, further enhancing the relative value of said issuance.

Selling all this optionality does have its price, as do most things in life, but the current exuberance in credit markets may yet see CoCo investors fail to exact an adequate premium.

Corporate bond market liquidity – flush or flushed?

Posted on 4 December 2012 by Richard Woolnough

It has been a great few months for corporate bond issuance, as illustrated in the chart below. This huge flush of new transactions where buyer (investor) meets seller (issuer), shows that the primary market is in a historically healthy state, with buckets of liquidity. However, since the credit crunch there has been a great deal of discussion re the corporate bond market becoming less liquid, as dealers’ ability to bid for bonds has gone down the pan. Which is right?

Since the credit crunch began, the financial intermediaries who provide immediate liquidity for bond investors have been under a great deal of capital stress. Losses on securities, more conservative management, and reduced yet more expensive capital, have resulted in a shrinking of their market making balance sheets. This is illustrated in the chart below with data from the Federal Reserve showing primary dealer positions in corporates with maturities of more than a year.

According to some market observers, the above indicates that traders’ ability to take on risk has collapsed by roughly 80 percent, and therefore corporate bond market liquidity must have collapsed significantly in tandem, due to the disappearance of this historic pool of capital to bid for securities. However, we think this is a rather simplistic way for investors to explore what is going on. The chart below shows a far more relevant number than the size of dealers’ books – the actual historic trading volume in secondary corporate bonds, which gives a stronger indication of real, rather than hypothetical liquidity. This shows that turnover has not collapsed 80 percent in the same way as dealer inventory, and in fact daily volumes are on a par with where they were in 2007. It is also worth noting that investment banks’, and their shadow bank counterparts’ percentage of this volume will have fallen, and so it is likely that transactions between genuine end investors have increased substantially in real terms, and as a percentage of this turnover.

Back in 2007 the markets were exceptionally liquid. They were dominated by short term players using cheap regulatory capital to take on enormous credit risk. This was done directly by investment banks on their own account, or to warehouse positions to be sold on to vehicles such as CDOs and CLOs as they were launched. This activity has collapsed. So, along with the more stringent capital environment, the size of their inventories has understandably shrunk considerably. However, making markets and operating in the corporate bond market remains an important source of revenue for these financial intermediaries. Despite less capital being deployed, total secondary volume has recovered to 2007 levels, which means they have become more efficient and turnover per unit of inventory has gone through the roof, as illustrated below. The financial crisis has changed banks’ and investors’ appetites for and abilities to take risk.

The financial crisis has also driven a significant fundamental shift in how capital markets work. The recycling of capital (through the mismatch of risk taken by banks that was the route of the credit crunch) by using short term deposits to lend long term that dominated the landscape in 2007, is now morphing into a new, hopefully more stable process of borrowers being funded via the corporate bond market. Bank lending has shrunk, and the capital markets, led by the expanding bond market have attempted to fill the gap. As bank lending is replaced by more permanent term bond lending, then term mismatch and credit risk in the banking system is reduced, and that term and credit risk is assumed by the bond investor. The bond investor not only gets paid for assuming this risk but also has to work out what liquidity premium they need to be paid on top of the term and credit risk they have taken on board with their corporate bond position.

This premium will vary over the cycle like the other drivers of returns – credit and interest rates. It will expand when credit markets are weak, and liquidity poor (eg autumn 2009). It will contract when the credit outlook is great and liquidity high (spring 2007), and is something all investors need to be aware of when investing in the asset class. An investor in corporate bonds should examine where we are in the liquidity cycle, and should be aware that the perfect liquidity and huge dealer inventories of 2007 contributed to the ensuing rout in the asset class, while the illiquidity of the winter of 2008 was a great opportunity to buy and take advantage of the expanded liquidity premium. We know from the last 5 years that to an investor in corporate bonds, perfect liquidity can be a precursor to more dangerous times than illiquidity can.

Is corporate bond liquidity brilliant or is it at record lows? Well, it appears that daily volume of primary markets is at record levels, while secondary market liquidity has not grown in line with the size of the market place, but is not as low as a simple analysis of dealer inventory would imply. It is hard to know what average daily liquidity should be, as the market has been evolving in the recent dramatic economic conditions. However, the total liquidity of all transactions, both primary and secondary, indicates a growing, interesting market place as banks are being replaced by the corporate bond market as the funding vehicle of choice.

Why does UK government guaranteed Network Rail keep issuing debt in its own name – and at a higher cost?

Posted on 29 June 2012 by Jim Leaviss

Network Rail, the organisation that owns and manages the UK’s rail infrastructure, has just issued more of three tranches of its index-linked corporate bonds. These bonds are, like all of Network Rail’s debt, rated AAA and fully guaranteed by the UK government (the business was effectively nationalised in 2002 having bought Railtrack out of administration) . These bonds were issued with spreads around 30 bps over similar maturity UK index-linked gilts. That level of spread is typical of where Network Rail’s corporate bonds trade at the moment – and there is over £28 billion of this public debt outstanding. This means that if that corporate debt were issued today it would bear a total interest cost that is £84 million per year higher than the cost of issuing gilts (plus the costs of issuing debt as a corporate, e.g. separate listings, investment bank fees). Present value a perpetual income stream of £84 million at, say, 3% (the yield of ultra long dated gilts) and that is an additional cost of £2.8 billion.

So why isn’t the government borrowing in its own name at rates 0.3% per year lower than Network Rail and then directly on-lending the money to it? After all it has already assumed all of the credit risk through the guarantee. I know that £2.8 billion is relatively small in the scale of the UK’s debt problems nowadays (it was roughly the overshoot in May’s government borrowing requirement), and that assuming Network Rail’s debt obligations directly would increase the total UK national debt, but we’re talking about a simple accounting change to save billions of pounds.

Just don’t let’s get started talking about PFI…

Deutsche Bank 2012 Default Study – Default bark far worse than the bite?

Posted on 19 April 2012 by Stefan Isaacs

This week saw Deutsche Bank publish their 2012 Default Study, aptly subtitled ‘5yrs of crisis – The default bark far worse than the bite..’ The annual piece is particularly interesting, especially because the market now has five years of data since the onset of the great recession.

At the risk of failing to do an in-depth report justice it drew out several significant points for credit investors. Firstly, defaults between 2007-2012 have come in significantly lower than most would have expected. Secondly, loss given default (the loss incurred if an obligor defaults) in the last couple of years has been trending higher. Finally, investment grade credit continues to overcompensate investors vis a vis historical default experiences. High yield credit less so.

Whilst default rates have been decidedly ‘average’ over the last five years by historic standards, the statement masks an interesting picture. The below chart demonstrates that lower rated credit, especially sub-investment grade, has ‘outperformed’ the historic experience. Conversely Aa and A rated credit saw a higher default rate of 1.1% and 2.1% compared with a long run average of 0.8% & 1.3% respectively. Much of that can be attributed to the aggressive behaviour of financials (traditionally Aa & A rated) in the run up to the financial crisis and more conservative behaviour on the part of industrials. As Deutsche Bank argue, had we not seen massive intervention on the part of the authorities over the last five years then defaults would undoubtedly have been much higher. Perversely, it’s likely that the sheer extent of excess in the financial system forced intervention on a scale which artificially lowered the ‘market- free’ default rate experience.

An examination of recovery rates shows that there has been an obvious weakening and worrying trend developing over the past eighteen months or so. The following chart demonstrates this is somewhat out of whack with previous experience. Low default rates should typically correspond to strong recovery rates, partly because they are normally accompanied by better economic times. The current ‘artificially’ low default rate has been accompanied by a broad lack of confidence and a challenging environment for capital raising. This has weighed down on recoveries. Whatever the reason, this is an important trend that requires monitoring. Whilst defaults and their numbers garner headlines the loss given default is more relevant for investors.

Given the weakening trend in recovery rates, it would seem appropriate to apply a conservative recovery assumption of 20%, half the 40% traditionally applied, when analysing whether credit is or isn’t overcompensating a buy and hold investor. On this basis, investment grade non-financial spreads continue to significantly over compensate for historic default risk. Based on current market corporate bond spreads, Sterling investment grade non-financial credit is pricing in a default rate of 12.7% over five years, and 12.0% for European non-financial investment grade credit. This compares to a worst case experience of 2.4% for both European and Sterling credit since 1970. Turning to high yield, and again assuming a conservative 20% recovery, the data is less convincing. Whilst broadly speaking investors are still being overcompensated for investing in the asset class with an implied 5 year default rate of 37.9% versus the long-term average of 31.6%, much of the value comes from BB rated credit. At current valuations B & CCC rated credit provides far less compensation for buy and hold investors and clearly support the need for in-depth credit analysis, especially because of the spread dispersion to be found in the lower rated areas of the high yield market.

As far as the outlook is concerned it seems a reasonable call to argue for continued low default rates amongst investment grade industrials in core European economies and the US. Liquidity remains ample, earnings remain broadly strong and financial discipline adequate. On the other hand, default experiences in the periphery and financial arenas are very much at the whim of the authorities. The adjustments needed will undoubtedly take time if they are to happen at all. Without the ongoing support of central banks and creditor nations it is unlikely that default rates will go anywhere but up.

FT Alphaville’s analysis of the study can be found here.

A review of fixed interest asset class returns in 2011

Posted on 14 December 2011 by Anthony Doyle

The decorations are up, the presents are under the tree, and I’m starting to think of New Year resolutions. Yes 2012 is almost upon us. With that in mind, I thought it might be interesting to have a quick look at who have been the winners and losers in debt markets over the course of an eventful 2011.

As the below chart shows, investors in UK gilts have had a fantastic year. The top performing area of the bond market has been inflation-linked gilts which have provided a fantastic return of 16% to investors, despite the Bank of England’s quantitative easing programme not targeting this area of the market. Investors have sought the protection of inflation-linked assets in a horrible year for the Bank of England where inflation has hovered around the 5% mark due to higher commodity prices and tax increases. UK and German government bonds have generated great returns for investors due to the increase in risk aversion that has characterised markets since the summer.

At the other end of the scale, investors in Italian inflation-linked government bonds have suffered a loss of almost 15% due to solvency concerns surrounding the Italian government and the fear that Italy is entering into a prolonged recession as fiscal austerity measures begin to kick in.

Investment grade corporate bonds have had a solid year but it is important to define returns for non-financial and financial corporates. Non-financial credit has been the place to be, with Sterling non-financials up around 9% end EMU non-financials up 2% (a good result considering concerns around the growth outlook for Europe). Financials have lost ground this year, particularly European financials. Investors in peripheral and subordinated financial debt have had a terrible year. If you did own financial assets, senior debt outperformed subordinated debt by around 10%.

As expected, high yield markets have suffered as expectations that default rates would increase due to the global economic slowdown with European and Sterling high yield both losing 3.4%. That said, high yield markets have performed relatively well when one considers that the European and UK equity markets are down around 20% and 8% respectively this year. US high yield has generated a positive return for investors this year of 3% due to less chance of a recession in the US and relatively low leverage levels for US high yield businesses. The general view is that the US is a lot more advanced than both Europe and the UK in dealing with its anaemic growth outlook through aggressive and unconventional central bank monetary policy actions.

In the emerging market space, EM credit denominated in US dollars has done well and so has EM sovereign credit. Emerging markets have benefitted from substantial capital inflows over the last few years and certainly this is a trend that we are keeping a close eye on. A reversal of the huge capital inflows into EM debt would result in a total lack of liquidity and significantly higher borrowing costs for emerging market countries.

We are interested in hearing which fixed interest asset class our readers think will be the top performer in 2012, so please feel free to nominate your choice in the comments box below.

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