The Role of Corporate Bonds for Finance in Austria

With corporate bond issuance having grown at a fast pace in Austria in recent years, bonds have become firmly established as a pillar of the financing structure of the domestic corporate sector. More and more issuers are smaller firms, and they come from a broad range of industries. Bond financing allows companies to diversify their financing sources and to broaden their creditor base beyond the banking industry. Rather than drive up corporate debt, bonds have become an alternative to bank loans as a borrowing instrument. Compared with loans, bonds allow companies to borrow money over longer horizons, but high upfront costs make this instrument more attractive for companies that need to finance large volumes. Moreover, bonds are not equally appropriate for all financing requirements, which is why they will never fully replace loans in the long term. Finally, more stringent requirements implicitly apply to the quality of a company's credit ratings when companies intend to issue bonds than when they apply for a bank loan. So far, there have been very few cases of bond defaults in Austria.