Case Study: Case Study: On-Line Bond Issuance by Auction
The Client
A global investment bank with a strong franchise in bond issuance and a major secondary markets player.
The Challenge
The bank had developed a leading-edge technological platform for the secondary-market auction of bonds over the internet and wished to assess its use in the primary bond markets.
The bank wished to determine the appetite of investors and issuers by geography and paper-type for buying and selling new bond issues online, assess an entry strategy into this market and prepare a business case.
The Solution
We investigated the business issues via a four-stage process:
- An analysis of the bond issuance market to determine the size and nature of the markets for each type of paper in each geographical region; and the types of issuers and investors involved in each case.
- A survey of 200 investors and issuers globally to ascertain their appetite by region and type of paper for buying and selling bonds via auction online.
- The development of a proposition for market entry covering online sourcing of all aspects of the bond-issuance lifecycle, the launch geography and the types of paper .
- A targeted survey of a selection of the bank's own customers to test this market proposition.
The technical investigation covered the existing and required functionality and the technical integrity of the secondary bond auction system. It also covered the operational ability of the bank to provide a global service based on this system.
The Outcome
The project culminated with the completion of a business case and start-up proposal.