Anurag Jain's Blog
Tuesday, March 15, 2005

Whither Corporate Debt Securities?

According to a McKinsey report - Mapping the Global Capital Markets - world's fiancial assets have risen to $118 trillion in 2003 from a 'paltry' $12 trillion in 1980.

The financial assets of an economy broadly consist bank deposits, equity securities, government debt securities, and corporate debt securities. Financial depth, the number of times financial stock is to the economy's GDP, of Indian economy is 1.4. That makes India quite a liquid economy, but much lower than the depth of world's level (3.26).

The interesting observation for India would be that even though the debt component of financial assets is the one that's the poster child of this 12-to-118 $trillion growth story, India registers rather low growth on debt securities (government and corporate)! India's financial stock of $1 trillion consists of 45% Bank Deposits, 32% Equity Securities, 22% Government Debt Securities, and a miniscule 1% Corporate Debt Securities.

This 1% of corporate debt is explained by 0% growth in corporate debt securities during 1993-2003! Why is that so? Why are the Corporate Debt bonds not picking up in India? Two reasons come to my mind: a) Debt is relatively (to equity) more expensive to raise in India than anywhere else. b) Pending financial market reforms.

This deviation raises two curiosities too: Is it just a structural anamoly resulted by the years of market reforms negligence? Or, are there opportunities for entrepreneuers here (entrepreneurs outside the companies raising debt, of couse)?

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