Sales of short-term bonds rise 11.3 pct in H1

Sales of short-term corporate bonds in South Korea climbed more than 11 percent in the first half of 2022 from a year earlier on a spike in securitized debt issuance, data showed Friday.

Local firms floated 642.7 trillion won ($486 billion) worth of bonds maturing within one year in the January-June period, up 11.3 percent a year earlier, according to the data from the Korea Securities Depository.

Compared with the second half of last year, however, the amount was down 3.5 percent.

Short-term bonds refer to those that come due within one year, with the minimum amount of 100 million won or more per issue.

The issuance of general short-term bonds gained 3.2 percent on-year to 486.5 trillion won, and sales of securitized bonds floated by special purpose companies and other firms gained soared 47.4 percent to 156.2 trillion won.

Sales of bonds maturing within three months came to 640.1 trillion won, accounting for 99.6 percent of the total.

Securities firms sold the largest amount of short-term bonds with 305.7 trillion won, followed by special purpose companies with 156.2 trillion won, according to the data. (Yonhap)