亞洲債券市場熱潮呈現創新色彩

A fierce debate is under way among bond market specialists in Asia. Some believe the reg-ion’s markets are at last coming of age, but others fear the current boom will turn out to be shortlived and that there will be a return to their normal role of poor relations to the likes of New York and London.

亞洲債券市場專家正展開激烈辯論。一些人認爲該地區的債券市場正最終成熟，還有一些人擔心，當前的熱潮只是曇花一現，與紐約和倫敦等市場相比，亞洲債券市場將重新回到通常的微不足道的角色。

Bond issuance in the region soared in the past year to reached record levels in international dollar-denominated debt by early May. Fewer local borrowers are registering to market their deals in the US, which implies they are more confident about their ability to raise money locally. That suggests that Asia is generating deeper pools of capital from sources with a better understanding of local needs and regional norms.

截至5月初的過去一年，該地區以美元計價的國際債券發行規模飆升至創紀錄水平。到美國推介債券的亞洲借款者數量減少，這暗示，他們對於在本地融資的能力更爲自信。這表明，亞洲正從對本地需求和地區規範更爲了解的來源建立更深的資金池。

Arguably, more important for those backing a “this-time-is-different” view is the level of innovation apparent in bond transactions across the Asia-Pacific region. Lawyers are proving instrumental in devising and enabling these breakthroughs.

對於支持“這次不同”觀點的人而言，更爲重要的大概是亞太地區債券交易明顯體現出的創新水平。事實證明，律師對於設計和實現這些突破發揮了作用。

Examples of innovative deals in the past year include: “forest bonds”, in which interest is paid in carbon credits; China’s first “covered” deal, where the funds borrowed are backed by a ringfenced pool of collateral; and the first renminbi-denominated special drawing rights bonds, before the Chinese currency had even joined the International Monetary Fund’s SDR basket.

過去一年創新交易的例子包括：“森林債券”，用碳信用支付利息；中國首隻綠色資產“擔保”債券，借入的資金由專門的資產提供擔保；以及首隻以人民幣結算的特別提款權(SDR)債券，這甚至是在人民幣加入國際貨幣基金組織(IMF) SDR籃子之前。

As well as that, borrowers’ legal advisers produced innovative ways to work across borders and in vastly differing legal systems in order to develop forms of financing in which internat-ional investors feel comfortable taking the risk of investing onshore in China and elsewhere.

除此之外，借款人的法律顧問發明出創新的方法跨境和在迥異的法律體系內工作，以開發新的融資方式，讓國際投資者安心承擔在中國和其他地區投資的風險。

Along the way, some of them have battled with bureaucracy and persuaded government institutions to accept new financing structures. A few have even trekked for days through rainforests to research their projects.

同時，一些法律顧問與官僚體制作鬥爭，並說服政府機構接受新的融資結構。有一些甚至徒步數日穿過雨林進行項目研究。

Conservation projects have proved a popular field for bond market innovation everywhere. In Asia, it includes the world’s first “forest bonds”, sold by the International Finance Corporation, an arm of the World Bank, which raised $152m to finance forest conservation. The five-year bonds offered interest of 1.55 per cent in either cash or in carbon credits sold by the Kenyan forest scheme the deal will support.

事實證明，對於債券市場創新而言，環保項目在任何地區都是頗受歡迎的領域。在亞洲，它包括全球首隻“森林債券”，由世界銀行(World Bank)下屬機構國際金融公司(IFC)發行，共籌集1.52億美元，爲森林保護提供資金。債券期限爲5年，利率爲1.55%，利息要麼以現金支付，要麼以此次債券發行將支持的肯尼亞森林項目發售的碳信用支付。

“It is hard to get professional funds flowing into conservation,” says Martijn Wilder, the Sydney-based head of Baker McKenzie’s climate change and finance team, which structured the deal. “One way of doing that was to use a traditional financing tool to raise money, which could be directed into forest conservation.”

“很難讓專業資金進入環保領域，”貝克?麥堅時(Baker & McKenzie)氣候變化和金融團隊駐悉尼負責人瑪泰恩?維爾德(Martijn Wilder)表示，“一種方法是利用傳統融資工具籌資，可以用於森林保護。”該團隊負責安排這筆債券的發行。

Critical to the deal was a $12m commitment by miner BHP, which will pay the interest if the investors — which include funds such as TIAA, and Calstrs, the California teachers’ pension scheme — opt for cash instead of carbon.

對這筆交易至關重要的是礦商必和必拓(BHP)的1200萬美元承諾，如果投資者選擇收取現金而非碳信用，必和必拓將支付利息。這些投資者包括美國教師退休基金會(TIAA)和加州教師養老金計劃(Calstrs)等基金。

“The truth is that many investors don’t know much about carbon credits. The point is to expose them to that,” says Mr Wilder. “[The investors] have to elect each year whether to take credits or cash. If they are really savvy, they should be able to sell the credit for a higher price than the cash interest.”

“事實是很多投資者不那麼瞭解碳信用。關鍵是讓他們明白，”維爾德表示，“（投資者）必須每年選擇是接受碳信用還是現金利息。如果他們真的瞭解情況的話，他們應該可以以比現金利息更高的價格出售碳信用。”

Another regional first was a renminbi-denominated deal backed by the IMF’s basket of currencies, known as special drawing rights. While SDR products — essentially backed by a basket of dollars, euros, yen, sterling and renminbi — are commonly used as reserve assets by central banks, the aim was to highlight China’s impending inclusion as a reserve currency, which took place in October.

另一個亞洲第一是以人民幣結算的SDR債券。SDR是IMF的貨幣籃子。SDR產品（主要由美元、歐元、日元、英鎊和人民幣貨幣籃子提供支持）被央行普遍用作儲備資產，但當時發行這筆債券的目的是突出人民幣即將被納入SDR儲備貨幣籃子（於去年10月納入）。

The World Bank raised 500m in SDRs — about $700m — through the deal, which was more than two times oversubscribed.

世界銀行通過該交易籌資5億SDR——約7億美元，認購倍數超過兩倍。

Although rare, SDR bonds are not themselves new: the innovation lay in making this particular deal possible. One challenge was that the China Foreign Exchange Trade System (CFETS), run by the People’s Bank of China, did not publish reference rates for all SDR currencies at the same times each day.

雖然SDR債券較爲少見，但它本身並非新事物：創新使得這筆交易成爲可能。其中一個挑戰是，中國人民銀行直屬的中國外匯交易中心(CFETS)此前並非每天同一時間公佈所有SDR貨幣的參考匯率。

“The PBoC’s system captured the points but they weren’t publishing them — so it had to revise its system,” says Christine Chen, a partner at King & Wood Mallesons, who praises the efforts of Chinese central bankers to make the innovation work. “They don’t always have much flexibility. But they really want to take the market structure forward and they want to attract international issuers and the very best international investors.”

“中國央行的系統獲取了數值，但他們不對外公佈——因此它必須修改該系統，”金杜律師事務所(King & Wood Mallesons)合夥人陳已昕(Christine Chen)表示，“他們的靈活度不夠。但他們確實想推進市場結構，想吸引國際發行方和非常出色的國際投資者。”

Other innovations in the region dealt with challenges that are more familiar to lawyers: structuring complex deals to very tight time-tables.

該地區其他創新解決的是律師更熟悉的挑戰：在非常緊張的時間表中安排複雜的交易。

A 27-strong team from Hogan Lovells, for example, was needed to structure a $70m investment by Goldman Sachs’ private equity arm into Red Planet Hotels.

例如，霍金路偉律師事務所(Hogan Lovells)需要派一支27人的隊伍，來安排高盛(Goldman Sachs)的私募股權部門向紅色星球酒店(Red Planet Hotels)投資7000萬美元的交易。

This fast-developing budget chain has am-bitions to expand across the region but still lacked the scale to appeal to many banks. The time-table facing Hogan Lovells was just two months. Structuring the loan involved taking onshore security over the chain’s assets in countries that are often considered risky in legal terms, including Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines.

這家快速發展的連鎖酒店有在亞洲擴張的雄心，但其規模仍然不足以吸引很多銀行。霍金路偉律所的時間表只有2個月。安排貸款，涉及對該連鎖酒店在包括泰國、印尼和菲律賓在內的多個國家——這些國家在法律方面通常被認爲存在風險——的資產安排境內抵押。

Allan Wardrop, the partner who led the deal, concedes that innovation in such transactions can be hard to replicate in the next deal because of the differing complexities that are involved in each one. But he nevertheless predicts a growing market for similar private equity-based funding.

牽頭該交易的霍金路偉律所合夥人艾倫?沃德羅普(Allan Wardrop)承認，由於每筆交易涉及的複雜問題不同，此類交易中的創新很難在下一次交易中複製。但他仍然預測，類似基於私募股本的融資市場將快速發展。

“There aren’t so many debt funds yet, but I think they will increasingly be looking at this type of deal — particularly in Asia where you’ve got high-growth businesses who can’t yet tap the mainstream markets,” he says.

“目前還沒有太多的債券基金，但我認爲他們將日益關注此類交易——特別是在亞洲，這裏擁有快速發展、但尚未能觸及主流市場的企業，”他表示。