Does the trading volume of asset management companies’ bonds contain information on non-performing loans?

Abstract

We investigate the relationship between the transactional activity of asset management companies (AMCs) in the non-performing loan (NPL) market and their corresponding debt issuances in a niche bond market in Borsa Istanbul. We analyze the determinants of the trading volume of AMC bonds to determine whether an issue's volume can reflect bond-specific factors after controlling for firm-specific information. We employ pooled ordinary least squares and random effects panel data regressions on a monthly data set of 26 bonds traded between 2012 and 2019. We find that higher trading volume is associated with larger issues, older bonds, and issuers of long-term debt only. These results suggest that the trading volumes of such bonds decrease when NPL transactions become rare due to worsening economic and financial conditions, at which point the investor demand for new issuances declines and the AMCs are forced to issue short-term debt instead to raise funds.