Corporates eye cross-currency swaps as Euribor sinks

The European Central Bank cut its benchmark interest rate to 0.05% in September 2014, tempting some corporates to swap their debt into euros and cut their debt service costs. But some see hidden dangers

Of note: low interest rate environment creates potential for windfall savings in debt service costs for corporate borrowers

Since the current period of low interest rates began, much of the discussion has centred on the difficulties the buy side faces in generating yield for investors. For corporate borrowers, though, it creates the potential for windfall savings in their debt service costs.

Not only can they finance themselves at historically low levels generally, but a recent cheapening of cross-currency swaps by up to 30% has enabled some to synthetically convert their debt into euros to take advantage of ultra