No. 269 - First-time corporate bond issuers in Italy

The paper looks at the characteristics of Italian non-financial firms that accessed the bond market for the first time between 2002 and 2013. The results of logit estimations indicate that first-time bond issuers are significantly larger and more frequently listed on the stock exchange than firms not issuing bonds. We also find that their decision to enter the bond market stems from a need to finance growth, especially where internal resources are limited, and to rebalance maturity mismatches between assets and liabilities. Our estimates also suggest that the sharp drop in the number of small issuers during the economic crisis is partly due to increased risk aversion on the part of market investors. Based on the econometric results, we estimate that the non-issuers include some 450-650 firms whose characteristics are very similar to those of companies that have begun to issue bonds in the last decade. These estimates are surrounded by considerable uncertainty due to the evolution of the macroeconomic context as well as the effects of new rules on minibonds.