New York City-based Bloomberg L.P. has announced several methodology changes to its Bloomberg Barclays aggregate index family effective Aug. 1.
The changes are in response to Bloomberg’s ongoing global index review and governance process, in addition to feedback from the Canadian Index Advisory Council conducted with participants in Dec. 2017.
The new minimum amount outstanding for securities eligible for the Canada aggregate index will be lowered from $300 million to $150 million. With this change, approximately 347 securities will be added to the Canada aggregate index, equivalent of $71 billion in amount outstanding (approximately 5% of the Canada aggregate) in order to better present corporate issuance in Canada.
The Canada aggregate index in its entirety will be included in the global aggregate index.
Additionally, bond ratings from Toronto-based DBRS Ltd. will be used in the determination of index credit quality classifications for Canadian dollar-denominated securities in the Canada aggregate and global aggregate indices. This charge will lead to approximately 49 securities added to the Canadian aggregate index, equivalent of $$10 billion in amount outstanding.
The new methodology will take four ratings into account, remove the highest and lowest ratings among the four, and then use the lower of the two remaining ratings to assign an index rating. If fewer than four ratings are available for a given security, the existing methodology using three or fewer ratings will be employed.
Furthermore, bonds with certain markets of issue will be excluded from Canada aggregate indices to address accessibility challenges faced by Canada domestic investors. Specifically, bonds with market of issue of “Euro MTN” or “Euro Non-Dollar” will be excluded. Bonds from these markets of issue will remain included in the global aggregate index.
Bail-in bonds that are expected to be issues starting Q3 2018 will be included in Canada aggregate indices. Non-viability contingent capital (NVCC) bonds will be included in and eligible for Canada aggregate indices.
Lastly, in order to represent the market structure of the Canada fixed income market, Bloomberg will launch the following new Canada aggregate sub-indices by Aug. 1: maple and domestic, provincials, municipals, federal agency and federal non-agency.