Pain ahead for S-EA firms with overseas debts

Singapore

SOUTH-EAST Asia's penchant for overseas borrowing is storing up pain for years ahead with companies facing record bond repayments just as local currencies slump.

Thirty-eight per cent of bonds sold by Indonesian, Malaysian, Philippine and Thai companies this year have been in foreign currencies, up from 27 per cent in 2014, data compiled by Bloomberg show. Companies face US$45 billion of bond repayments in greenback, euros or yen in the coming five years, breaking records set after the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis, when economists Barry Eichengreen and Ricardo Hausmann coined the term "original sin" to describe the dangers of overseas borrowing.