D&B: Global economy still struggling but corporates never better.
The global economy has recovered in fits and starts and not even in especially dramatic ones since the recession and financial collapse of 2008. However, from a financial standpoint, global corporations haven’t been this healthy in decades, according to a Dun & Bradstreet (D&B) report.
“As a financial professional I may be looking at the economy and saying I’d like to see stronger economic and top-line revenue growth,” said Paul Ballew, chief economist at D&B. “On the other hand, we’re six years into the restructuring process, and the business sector in particular is unbelievably healthy.”
D&B’s mid-year update to its Global Economic Outlook to 2018, released July 18, still rated 94 of the 132 countries it tracks worse than at the start of 2008 in terms of growth, but that’s an improvement.
“One sign that conditions are easing is that we upgraded more countries than we downgraded in the first half of 2014; although this far into the recovery, we would be expecting to have upgraded significantly more countries,” the report says.
Mr. Ballew said D&B’s global economic outlook remains largely unchanged from the start of the year, although the US was one of the downgraded countries. He noted that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) cut it global and US growth forecasts July 24. He said that the hard winter was one factor explaining the reduced optimism over US economic prospects, and at least as important are the still hesitant pace of business investment and the “elongated” economic recovery.
The IMF cut its forecast for world economic growth to 3.4 percent this year, down from its April forecast of 3.7 percent, reflecting developed countries’ ongoing struggle to regain momentum in the wake of the global financial downturn as well as the challenges faced by developing countries, which early on were a bright spot.
“Global growth could be weaker for longer, given the lack of robust momentum in advanced economies despite very low interest rates and the easing of other brakes to the recovery,” said the IMF in its quarterly World Economic Outlook.
Mr. Ballew said that this many years into economic cycle, signs of “drunken and disorderly behavior” among corporates normally start to emerge. However, D&B’s monthly tracking measures point to companies continuing to pay bills on time, low default rates and other indications that the private sector remains very healthy financially.
“Companies have been on a sobriety kick for the last six years, and they’re still in that model, for the most part,” Mr. Ballew said, adding that there are some signs of froth, such as tight junk bond spreads and increasing leverage that must be monitored. “Companies may occasionally have a drink, but their not breaking out the gin bottle.”
Mr. Ballew said companies are still highly selective in terms of pursuing growth opportunities. Emerging markets have been popular targets for growth, but they’ve taken on significant private and governmental debt, in part resulting from the Federal Reserve’s monetary policies that have driven down interest rates and shifted yield-searching capital in their direction.
D&B’s mid-year report ranks the top-10 risks impacting global business, listing civil wars in Iraq and Syria, escalation of the Ukraine crisis and European Union banking stress tests leading to bigger than expected financing needs as numbers two, three and four, respectively. It views North America as the region with the top risk, as market participants try to predict the pace and timing of interest rate hikes as the Fed ends its asset purchase program.
That risk could roil developed markets, including the US’s, but its impact likely would be greatest among developing markets.
“The biggest risk of the Fed pulling back is outside the US, because it could impact capital flows,” Mr. Ballew said, noting that when the Fed hinted at eventual interest-rate hikes a year ago, short-term borrowing rates in Turkey and other emerging markets skyrocketed.