It has been quite a busy week, with the launch of Aspial’s retail bond offer, and the general market being in negative territory. Let’s take a look at Aspial’s retail bonds first. Aspial’s Bond Offer In my previous post on retail bonds, I covered Frasers Centrepoint Limited’s retail bond issue. In comparison with Aspial’s offer, it would seem that Aspial’s bond offer appears to be a good deal! One might wonder, why is the coupon rate on Aspial’s bond so high compared to FCL’s bond? Well, the simple answer has already been highlighted in the post – the bond itself is unrated, and the issuer and guarantor are both unrated as well (i.e. junk bonds). This means you will be taking on more risk, as compared to FCL, and therefore, the interest that you receive for loaning your money to Aspial is quite a bit more. Contrasting this ......