TORONTO, Ontario, Canada - December 20, 2010 - Call it the $6.5 trillion headache. That’s the total value of corporate bond issues maturing in 2011 and 2012 globally.

This massive rollover will intensify the competition for capital at the same time as global sovereign issuance surges and private lending sees a gradual recovery, according to Scotia Capital economists Derek Holt and Gorica Djeric.

In fact, their search only included maturing issues of more than $100 million (almost 2,000 entries), so $6.5 trillion is an understated estimate.

Large amounts of maturing corporate debt may also explain why companies are hoarding unusually high levels of cash, and thereby holding off on hiring, investment, lending and returning capital to shareholders. Instead, companies are choosing to guard against refinancing risks and retire some of their issues, the economists said in a report.

The economists found that the United States, Germany, the UK and Italy have the highest volume of maturing corporate bonds. While U.S. and UK volumes are not out of line with their respective global market weights, Germany and Italy are.

German corporations have roughly 12% of the global total for maturing bonds, which is about four times Germany’s share of world equity market capitalization. Italy’s share of maturing issues is almost 6%, which is far greater than its share of global equity capitalization at just above 1%.

Canada’s share is $177 billion, or 2.7% of the total, which is below its 3.9% weighting in world equity market capitalization. This suggests that rollover risk is less material than elswhere, the economists said.