On the crest of a wave

Corporate bond volumes have been soaring as companies scramble to meet their funding requirements in the wake of the loan market's demise. Simon Boughey looks at whether this wave of issuance is a temporary phenomenon or whether it heralds a permanent switch in corporate treasurers' fund-raising strategies

By mid-March, the consensus among leading investment bankers on both sides of the Atlantic was that there was no let up in sight to the issuance frenzy which the bond markets had experienced since the turn of the year. As long as investors were willing to buy, borrowers would bring debt to be sold.

Corporate borrowers have been deprived of many key sources of funding. Some areas of their traditional funding structures are operating at a reduced capacity, while others are just plain broken and