The Development of the Swedish Corporate Bond Market : A sustainable market with a potential of high future growth?

Abstract: Background: The financial crisis in 2008 has led to a number of consequences for the financial sector. For banks, new stricter regulations with the Basel III accord will be implemented from 2013. The adaption to the new conditions has resulted in stricter lending policies, which means that is tougher for companies to get traditional bank loans. Companies have started to look for other funding alternatives and the corporate bond market has gained more attention and a clear trend of growth for this market has been seen during the last couple of years Purpose: The purpose of this thesis is to examine the development of the corporate bond market in Sweden and analyze how this will impact the market participants and how they can adapt and utilize from it. Method: The research method used, in order to meet the purpose of this thesis, is mainly qualitative. The study it is based on in-depth, semi-structured interviews with different market participants that have great knowledge regarding their specific field of expertise. To back this up and, in more detail, understand more exactly the pace of the growth, the interview have been complemented with statistics of the current market situation. Conclusion: The Swedish corporate bond market has experienced a significant growth during the last couple of years and this has affected a lot of actors on the financial markets that have adapted their business to the new prevailing conditions. All market participants agree that this development will continue and they highlight the importance for the development to be qualitative in order to get a sustainable market.