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Borrowers Should Ditch Beach for Bond Market, Credit Suisse Says

Borrowers Should Ditch Beach for Bond Market, Credit Suisse Says

(Bloomberg) -- European borrowers should rush to market in August, traditionally a dead month for bond issuance, as risks begin to mount up, according to Credit Suisse Group AG.

The bank is advising clients to “take advantage of any period of calm that exists between now and September,” Piers Ronan, its head of financials institutions group debt syndicate, said in an interview. “We think it ought to be busy,” he said.

Issuers are coming round to the idea of August deals as it may help them avoid the fallout from risks that “haven’t really crystallized yet” including rising U.S-China trade tensions and Brexit, Ronan said. The average yield on euro investment-grade corporate bonds is still only about 1 percent, according to Bloomberg Barclays index data.

A less pronounced summer slowdown would also echo the U.S., where August makes up about 7 percent of annual bond issuance compared with about 3 percent in Europe, he said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Emma Haslett in London at ehaslett@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Hannah Benjamin at hbenjamin1@bloomberg.net, Neil Denslow

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