Statistics on securities issues of Irish financial and non-financial firms: February 2012 

Information release 13 April 2012

The Central Bank of Ireland today re-launched its statistics on market-based financing activities of financial and non-financial firms incorporated in Ireland at end-February 2012. A number of important enhancements have been incorporated. These include the publication of detailed information on the remaining maturities of bonds across all sectors alongside growth rates and indices in addition to the incorporation of further data on Securities Holdings Statistics.

Market-based financing activities, the issuances of bonds and equity shares, provide an alternative source of financing to bank-based funding. The dataset contains information on the volume of bonds and notes issued during February, as well as the market valuation of outstanding equity shares by sector of issuer at end-February. The sectors of the issuers are: banks; other financial intermediaries; Government; non-financial corporates; and insurance companies and pension funds.

View information release with charts and related data tables.

Overview:

• At end-February 2012, the outstanding amount of debt securities issued by Irish financial and non-financial firms, and the Government stood at close to €1.01 trillion; representing a year-on-year five per cent reduction. Net redemptions of bonds continued across all sectors in February 2012 for the second consecutive month. The single largest quantum of these redemptions occurred in the banking sector where there were ongoing redemptions of both short- and long-term debt securities reflecting ongoing balance sheet corrections.  
• Equity shares outstanding had a value of almost €207.5 billion at end-February, representing a year-on-year net increase of approximately €30.5 billion (or 17 per cent).
• The equity value of Irish firms increased at a significantly faster rate than the ISEQ over the past 18 months. The equity index (shown in Graph 3 below) includes a number of companies whose headquarters are in Ireland. These companies are included in Ireland’s securities issues statistics but not quoted on the Irish Stock Exchange.

Government Debt Issuance:

• The outstanding value of long-term Government bonds remained unchanged at €85.4 billion at end-February[1]. However, this represents a year-on-year reduction of more than 5 per cent when compared with February 2011 (€90 billion); this follows the redemption of a Government bond in November 2011.
• The NTMA completed a €3.53 billion bond swap in January 2012; this exchange marked the NTMA’s return to the markets for the first time since September 2010.
• €19.9 billion (or 23 per cent) of this long-term debt will fall due in less than 3 years.

Government Debt Holdings:

• At end-February 2012, resident holders accounted for approximately 23 per cent of all long-term Irish Government bonds, compared to 17 per cent in February 2011.
• The banking sector accounted for 85 per cent of all resident holdings in February 2012 (or €16.9 billion).
• Detailed historical information on the Securities Holdings Statistics are published here.

Banking Sector:

• Market-based debt financing for the banking sector continued to contract during February. Developments include cumulative net redemptions of €11.6 billion during the month.
• These net redemptions in February 2012 show a very different picture to developments in the banking sector in February 2011 when net issuance of €200 million across both short- and long-term debt securities was recorded.
• Approximately €42.7 billion (or 43 per cent) of the total debt securities issued by Irish banks will fall due within the next 12 months.
• The rise in the outstanding amount of equity securities in the banking sector (108 per cent) over the past 12 months made an important contribution to the overall increase in the total outstanding amount of equity securities. This partially reflected the impact of bank recapitalisations in 2011 in addition to increases in market valuations and new equity issuance.

Other Financial Intermediaries:

• The other financial intermediary (OFI) sector[2] recorded total net redemptions of approximately €2.6 billion in February 2012. This represents a steep decrease on the corresponding net redemption of the previous month (€8.2 billion).
• The total outstanding amount of debt securities fell to €813.7 billion with long-term debt securities accounting for €761.2 billion (or 94 per cent) of this total.
• Approximately €91.4 billion (or 11 per cent) of the total debt securities issued by the OFI sector will fall due within the next 12 months.
• A rise in the outstanding amount of equity securities in the OFI sector (10 per cent) over the past 12 months also played an important part in the general upward movement in quoted equity securities since early-2010.

Non-Financial Corporates and Insurance & Pension Funds:

• The outstanding amount of debt securities issued by non-financial corporates (NFC), and insurance companies and pension funds remained broadly unchanged at €3 billion and €2.3 billion, respectively, at end-February 2012.
• Approximately €606 million (or 20 per cent) of total debt securities issued by the NFC sector will fall due within the next 12 months.
• The outstanding amount of equity securities in the NFC (up €6.1 billion) and IC&PF (up €52 million) sectors increased month-on-month to €174.3 billion and €285 million, respectively, in February 2012, as a result of positive market valuations.

Detailed tables can be found on the Central Bank of Ireland’s website here. The data are largely compiled from an ESCB securities reference database, the Centralised Securities Database.

Notes:

• The statistics are based on Irish resident sectors issuances of securities where an ISIN[3] code is assigned, irrespective of the market of issue or listing. Non-ISIN information is also provided for monetary financial institutions.
• Debt securities are broken down according to their original maturity and coupon type. Equity securities are classified into quoted and unquoted securities excluding investment fund shares/units.
• The difference between month-on-month equity stocks reflects valuations changes transactions in addition to transactions and other adjustments, for example, reclassifications and corrections.
• The data reflect revisions arising from data quality management activities performed by the Bank, which contribute to improvements in the data.
• The methodological notes guiding the compilation of these statistics can be found on the ECB’s  website.

[1] Refers to debt securities in all currencies