Canadian corporations are slated to see their debt refunding needs rise over the next several years, peaking in 2022, says Moody’s Investors Service in a report published Tuesday.
From 2018 to 2022, Canadian non-financial companies will have roughly US$93 billion in debt maturing, the report says.
Notably, investment-grade bond maturities are up by 11% from last year to US$39 billion, the report says, and speculative-grade bond maturities are down 7% to US$53 billion.
According to the report, 2022 is now the peak year for Canadian companies’ maturities, with US$30 billion in corporate debt maturing that year, including US$22 billion worth of speculative-grade debt.
“Speculative-grade maturities could further increase as issuers refinance all the debt under their credit facilities at the time when the earliest instrument, typically a revolver, comes due,” says Paresh Chari, AVP and analyst at Moody’s, in a statement.
“Because of this ‘pull-forward effect,’ total speculative-grade maturities will remain steady in 2018, but could increase by 40% in 2019 to US$7 billion.”
Near-term refunding risk “will remain low amid the expectation that the Canadian high-yield market will remain steady as the economy improves and commodity prices remain flat,” the report says.