specially targeted issue

A debt issue that has interesting twists to entice potential buyers. Companies try to raise funds through specially targeted issues when there already is a large amount of the company’s debt outstanding in the market. For instance, a European telecom company with a large amount of debt may target its debt issue to Asian investment funds because those investors only hold a small percentage of the telecom company’s debt. The debt issuer and its underwriters will claim that the group suffers from poor allocations in deals that are targeted at institutional investors. Because these investor groups tend to be smaller, they may not receive as large of an allocation as they might want. A specially-targeted issue resolves this problem. However, others in the market may cast doubts on that rationale for a specially-targeted issue.