Amounts Raised in New Tel Aviv Stock Exchange Bond Offerings at a 10-year High

The year 2017 continues to look like a banner year for public bond offerings in Tel Aviv. After a surge this month, compared to October 2016, this year will apparently see the highest amounts raised in public offerings since 2007, the year before the global financial crisis.

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A survey conducted by the Midroog ratings agency revealed that since the beginning of this year, 64 billion shekels ($18 billion at current rates) has been raised in bond offerings on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange. The first 10 months of this year generated about the same amount as all of last year, which was considered a particularly strong year. During the first 10 months of last year, 60 billion shekels was raised in bond issues. The figure for January through October of 2015 was just 49 billion. September has been the strongest month so far this year, with 10.7 billion shekels raised.

Standouts in October 2017 included the 2.4 billion shekel bond offering by the Israel Electric Corporation and 1.9 billion shekels in bonds issued by Discount Investment Corp. as part of its debt swap plan. October 2016 saw just 1.1 billion shekels raised through new bond issues, although the timing of the fall Jewish holidays last year meant a greater slowdown on business activity for that month compared to this year. Thirteen public companies issued bonds this month.

This year real estate firms have boosted their share of the take from bond issues by 30% to 27 billion shekels so far, with a surge of bond offerings by American real estate firms. However, only a billion shekels was raised through bonds floated in the real estate sector as a whole in October.