Bond Exchange of South Africa Members Opt to Open Up Debt Markets

27 August, 2007 in South Africa

source: allAfrica
Business Day (Johannesburg)

27 August 2007
Posted to the web 27 August 2007

Renée Bonorchis
Johannesburg

THE Bond Exchange of SA (Besa) has been given the go-ahead by the majority of its members to come up with a full proposal to offer foreigners remote access to local debt markets, hopefully before the year is out.

“It seemed no one who was there (at the debate last week) was anti the principle,” said Garth Greubel, head of Besa.

“There must have been at least 80% of our members represented, including national treasury and the Financial Services Board.”

Besa is considering such a move because liquidity appears to be flowing to London’s bond market, among others.

Bruce Simpson, a fixed-interest expert at Sanlam Investment Management and a member of the exchange, said at the weekend that the growth of London’s over-the-counter (OTC) market was of major concern.

“We are a locally based company with a local client base and so believe that it is in our and our clients’ best interests to have a healthy, liquid, transparent and regulated local market,” Simpson said. “We are of the opinion that there is no way to force the London flow to come back to SA.

“Rather, we will need to [continue reading]