JPMorgan Chase & Co., Morgan Stanley, and Bausch Health lead corporate debt issuers in Institutional Investor’s first annual Global Fixed-Income Investor Relations ranking.
The ranking, an expansion of last year’s All-America Fixed Income Investor Relations leaderboard, highlights the IR teams which best serve their fixed-income investors. More than 1,300 bond and credit specialists from over 650 asset management firms voted for their favorite fixed-income investor relations teams worldwide and within the U.S. and Canada, Europe, and Asia.
These respondents ranked the top issuers of investment-grade and high-yield debt globally across nine industry sectors. They evaluated investor relations teams based on five attributes: balance sheet transparency, communication of strategy shifts, clarity of debt covenant calculations and other provisions, responsiveness to questions on debt ratings, and engagement with bondholders.
In the investment-grade category, the companies with the best investor relations teams worldwide included Ford Motor Co., Verizon Communications, and Deere & Co. (the company behind the John Deere brand). Oil and gas company Enterprise Products Partners, Chinese real estate company Yuzhou Properties Co., and mining firm Vale also ranked first in their respective sectors.
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Meanwhile, the global high-yield category was led by firms including Indonesian mining company Indika Energy, equipment lender United Rentals, food processor JBS, and Brazilian energy company Petrobras. Property developer China Aoyuan Group and Luxembourg-based communications company Intelsat also ranked first in their respective sectors.
Just three companies earned No. 1 rankings in both the high-yield and investment-grade categories: JPMorgan Chase & Co., Morgan Stanley, and Bausch Health.
In addition to ranking the best investor relations teams overall, respondents were also asked to rate how well companies used debt — in other words, whether bond issuances were prudent and value-creating.
These rankings were nearly identical to the main leaderboards, with Vale, Deere, Ford, Enterprise Products, JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley, Bausch Health, Yuzhou Properties, and Verizon again ranking as the top firms globally when it comes to investment-grade credit. Similarly, high-yield leaders Indika Energy, United Rentals, JBS, Petrobras, JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley, Bausch Health, China Aoyuan, and Intelsat were also recognized for best use of high-yield debt.
