Banging the drum

As debt mountains have climbed, bond investors have increasingly been banging the drum on the question of investor relations. As David Watts reports, bondholders have long been seen as the poor cousin of their equity relatives, but today that is changing.

European bond investors complain that companies issuing debt treat them like mushrooms – they are kept in the dark and covered in manure. The euro-denominated corporate bond market is now worth over e1 trillion. But, despite the reliance that European companies place on the market, they have some considerable catching up to do when it comes to their appreciation of the market’s investors.

It is not only in Europe that bond investors can feel downtrodden. In March this year, one of the largest