Coming of age: New opportunities in maturing euro high-yield market

Alliance Bernstein's Martin Reeves on the strong performance of the euro high-yield market.

The European junk bond market has come a long way since the issue of the continent’s first high-risk, high-yield corporate bond in 1997 by Swiss-based toilet manufacturer, Geberit. Three years later, the crash of the Nasdaq stock market triggered turmoil in the credit market and a wave of defaults. Investors in almost two-thirds of the European issuers listed in January 2001 had flushed their money away. Fast forward to 2009, and investors were more sanguine, as euro high-yield securities posted record returns of 79.6%, strongly outperforming US high-yield bonds and many other assets. Eu...