Debt markets: Yankee market steps up to the plate

WITH 40% OF US corporate bond market issuance coming from overseas issuers so far in 2010, European borrowers, battered by a sovereign debt crisis, have found much-needed liquidity in the yankee bond markets, away from difficult markets at home. Although the migration to US capital markets is accelerating, the initial shift pre-dates the European liquidity crisis. The realization that funding diversification was no longer just a good idea but a necessity has brought an increasing number of European companies to the US public and private bond markets.