[Market Now] Corporate bond issues fall in March

Korea’s corporate bond issues fell more than 40 percent to 1.6 trillion won ($1.4 billion) last month due to worsening corporate sentiment, according to the Financial Supervisory Service on Monday.

The FSS data show that fixed-income securities issued by corporations amounted to some 7.9 trillion won in the first quarter of this year ending March 31, down more than 34 percent from a year ago. 

The fall was attributable to a decline in the issue of bonds graded above A, which only accounted for about 13 percent of the total. This is due to a growing number of companies especially in the shipping and shipbuilding sectors facing a liquidity crisis.

By Park Hyong-ki (hkp@heraldcorp.com)