The day of the hybrids: Is the flowering corporate market as attractive as it seems?

Christmas came in January this year for the European corporate hybrid bond market. That was when state-controlled French electricity utility Electricité de France (EDF) raised €6.2 billion in hybrid capital, smashing the previous €3.2 billion issuance record set by General Electric in 2007. Not content with the €4 billion it raised in euros and sterling, EDF subsequently raised €2.2 billion-equivalent non-call 10 from the US dollar 144a market – a vast pool of potential investors that has thus far been largely untapped by corporate hybrid issuers.