Corporate bonds to gain too: Sebi chief

MUMBAI: The recent decisions by two of the largest global index management entities, JP Morgan and Bloomberg, to include India’s sovereign bonds into some of their bond indices could eventually lead to increased interest for Indian corporate bonds as well.
“We are expecting that there will be a significant interest in corporate debt on the back of the inclusion of sovereign debt in the global indices,” Sebi chief Madhabi Puri Buch said on Wednesday. The markets regulator chief was speaking at a conference jointly organised by Sebi and NISM, a research & training institution for Indian regulators run by the markets regulator.
“Govt of India bonds will be part of the global indices and that automatically means that a lot of passive investment will come into the country. The reason we are delighted is that once a benchmark and a yield curve have been established for the sovereign debt, then there is a lot of confidence in terms of investing in the corporate debt as well,” she said. She also said that if one looked at India’s corporate bond market, while the secondary market is not so vibrant, the primary market is very robust.