When FinanceAsia put together the local currency bond poll 2001, we asked investors to make any additional comments about their individual markets after answering a pre-set list of questions.
Many of the participants in Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan and Thailand chose to express their thoughts on what they see as the key issues, but not one of the investors polled in Hong Kong choice to use the opportunity to voice their opinions.
Does that mean that everything is fine with the Hong Kong dollar bond market? After all, it is generally regarded as the most efficient and sophisticated of all the Asian markets outside of Japan with high volumes and a diverse set of issuers.
In fact, the results make for interesting reading, as they seem to highlight that the investor base is not overly impressed with the way the market is developing. For example, the only category in the poll that scored higher than average marks was for the quality of documentation, where 95% of respondents expressed their satisfaction.
For every other question asked, most respondents selected the average or worse than average boxes. Over 40% of those polled feel that liquidity is unsatisfactory at the moment, 54.5% believe that there are insufficient hedging instruments available to investors and 41% are unhappy with the development of new products.
Just over 63% consider the quality of transparency and information provided by issuers to be average or worse and 27% would like to see the government's support of the market improved.
Not many readers will be surprised at the name of the bank voted the preferred choice of Hong Kong investors. Indeed, the only category in which HSBC did not come first in was for best foreign bank in the secondary market รป and it was not eligible.
So dominant is HSBC's position that no other bank received even one vote in the category for best bank for origination. It was also re-confirmed in the category of bank used most often for primary issues. Using a weighted system in which three banks could be chosen, with the top choice scoring five points, the second three points and the third, one point, HSBC's score of 125 points comfortably beat BNP Oakreed's score of 21 and Deutsche Bank's 10 points.
HSBC also came up trumps as the best bank for corporate credit research, but the competition was far closer this time around. The bank's top score of 56 points edged out Merrill Lynch on 44 points, with JP Morgan coming in third on 27 points.
BNP Oakreed emerged as the investor's choice for best foreign bank in the secondary market with a tally of 33 points. Deutsche finished second with 19 points.
Full results from the local currency bond poll 2001 will be published in September's five-year anniversary special of FinanceAsia.
