DESPITE the efforts of banks to resist the trend, Asian corporates are moving towards debt funding and away from traditional loan syndications, according to Peregrine Fixed Income.
'An Asian bond market is being born; it is a market in transition,' Peregrine's managing director Andre Lee said.
He said disintermediation - the process by which borrowers cut out the middleman and use bonds to borrow, instead of going through a merchant bank - was necessary to meet Asia's huge funding needs.
Peregrine has launched a new credit research yearbook, which it bills as the first and only one of its kind in Asia, as part of its effort to promote the development of Asian fixed-income markets.
The 15-member credit research department, led by Jaideep Krishna, evaluates the ability of corporates and financial institutions to service their debt.
A Hopewell Holdings bond, which Peregrine sought to arrange in 1994, had failed partly because of resistance to disintermediation, Mr Lee said.
