Morrow Sodali, the global investor engagement and governance consulting firm, announced the launch of BondWatch, a proprietary real-time reporting system for its debt services clients. Despite the large sums involved in and strategic importance of debt restructuring transactions, real-time information is still not the norm during time-sensitive deals such as debt restructurings, tender offers, exchange offers and consent solicitations. The status of these transactions can change constantly, as thousands of investors may be dispersed across many different countries and time zones. To stay informed, bond issuers and their advisors have historically had to rely on infrequent, retrospective emails and spreadsheets prepared by their specialist agents who compile data on investor responses. Morrow Sodali has upended the status quo by developing a secure, proprietary real-time reporting system.
With offices in the major financial centers around the world, Morrow Sodali is the only independent agent providing seamless debt-related services to issuers, their advisors and investors around the world and around the clock.
With the launch of BondWatch, the firm has a strong competitive differentiator in this highly specialized market, building on Morrow Sodali’s track record of decades of experience serving global clients.
Pia Gowland, Director for the Americas Debt Services, says the development caps off a busy 18 months for the company, during which it has also invested heavily to expand its debt services team.
“Following several key hires in 2020, we saw a big increase in volumes of both sovereign and corporate liability management deals, with over 150 projects completed involving approximately $100 billion of bonds in the last year and a half,’’ commented Gowland.
Morrow Sodali’s Debt Services Senior Director, Damian Watkin, with more than 20 years of experience in the industry, emphasizes that “we’re constantly looking to improve our service offering and generally raise standards in the industry. In many ways, the provision of transaction information hasn’t evolved much in decades, so we see opportunities for innovation.”
“BondWatch enables us to keep our clients and their advisors fully informed as key deadlines approach, rather than having to wait for reports dispatched infrequently and only at set times of the day.’’
“The launch of BondWatch follows the development of other IT solutions to aid the administration of debt restructuring deals. As a response to various recent mandates, we have developed and rolled out web platforms to process Restructuring Support Agreements and Account Holder Letters, which are a necessary set of paper documents for in-court Schemes of Arrangement. This has allowed much greater accuracy and efficiency in the process for market participants and much shorter timelines for issuer clients to receive finalized results.”
Ken Abela, a Director in the Debt Services team based in Hong Kong, says the company is proud to be able to provide clients and their advisors with the ability to view voting, exchange or tender instructions as soon as they are received via the relevant clearing systems.
“Bond investors and intermediaries are located around the world, and the success of transactions often comes down to the wire. With key decisions being made based on those results, we recognized that our clients and their advisors required more timely data. As an innovator specializing in bondholder services, we aim to establish benchmarks rather than meet them.’’
Morrow Sodali is a market leader in bondholder identification and provision of agency services in debt restructurings and liability management transactions. For more information on Morrow Sodali’s Debt Services or to request a demonstration of BondWatch, please visit https://morrowsodali.com/bondwatch-demo.
ABOUT MORROW SODALI
Morrow Sodali is a global corporate advisory firm that provides clients with comprehensive advice and services relating to corporate governance, ESG, sustainability, proxy solicitation, capital markets intelligence, shareholder and bondholder engagement, M&A, activism and contested situations.
From headquarters in New York and London and offices in global capital markets, Morrow Sodali serves more than 700 clients in 80+ countries, including many of the world’s largest multinational corporations. Clients include listed and private companies, mutual fund groups, stock exchanges and membership associations.
A selection of Morrow Sodali’s debt deals can be seen at https://morrowsodali.com/debt-deals.
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Contacts
Jennifer Carberry (US), j.carberry@morrowsodali.com, +1 203 658 9419
Elena Cargnello (EMEA), e.cargnello@morrowsodali.com, +44 204 5136913
