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Why’s the ECB Buying the Debt of So Many Non-EU Companies?
The European Central Bank has been hoovering up the corporate bonds of a growing number of multinational firms that are not based in the Eurozone or the EU. Those firms include the finance divisions of Swiss behemoths Nestlé and Novartis, US giants Coca Cola and John Deere and UK-based British American Tobacco and WPP. It also includes the Hong Kong-based, Cayman Islands-registered conglomerate CK Hutchison Group. How easy is it for large non-EU firms to qualify for the ECB’s corporate bond buying scheme — known officially as the Corporate Sector Purchase Program (CSPP)? As the Spanish financial daily Cinco Dias ... (full story)