F212. Corporate Bonds and Foreign Bonds
Federal Reserve definition for F212 flow of funds table
Corporate and foreign bonds are debt obligations of U.S. financial and nonfinancial corporations and foreign entities.
The obligations which are reported on balance sheets as debt having a remaining maturity of more than one year, include bonds, notes, debentures, mandatory convertible securities, long-term debt, and unsecured debt.
The obligations of savings institutions include mortgage-collateralized securities.
For U.S. corporations, the category includes bonds issued both in the U.S. and in foreign countries, but not bonds issued in foreign countries by foreign subsidiaries of the U.S. corporations.
Foreign Bonds
For the rest of the world, the category is made up of bonds issued in the U.S. by foreign borrowers through U.S. dealers and purchased by U.S. residents; the foreign borrowers are private corporations and financial institutions, central governments and their agencies, local and municipal governments, and international organizations.
Also included in the debt obligations of the rest of the world are bonds of foreign entities that were originally issued abroad but were subsequently acquired by U.S. residents through U.S. dealers; this component does not include bonds issued by foreign entities that are purchased by non-U.S. residents.
On the asset side, it is not possible to separate the purchases of domestic issues from foreign issues (except by life insurance companies), and sector holdings may be of both types.
Life insurance companies hold nearly a third of total corporate bond debt outstanding.
Life insurance companies hold the largest share (nearly a third) of total corporate bond debt outstanding; outstanding holdings by the various sectors are shown at book value, except for bonds held by security brokers and dealers, which are shown at market value.
Foreign purchases of corporate bonds include purchases by non-U.S. residents of new issues sold abroad by U.S. corporations as well as net foreign purchases of outstanding bonds issued by U.S. corporations; also included are foreign purchases of municipal securities and, before 1993, foreign purchases of U.S. bonds issued by U.S. corporations through finance subsidiaries in the Netherland Antilles.
