Bond Deals of the Year: Financial institutions — FIG issuers find new ways into old markets

ABN Amro started European Green Bond Standard (EuGB) issuance rolling in the FIG market in February. It trailblazed the new label, joining one other corporate and SSA borrower that have used it.

The Dutch bank was eager to introduce the standard early, incorporating the framework into a larger funding round, combining the fixed rate green tranche with a €1.5bn two-year floating rate senior preferred conventional note.

ABN managed to make the new format work, even if it has taken longer for others to do so due to the more stringent criteria than in the prevailing ICMA’s Green Bond Principles.

It took two more senior preferred deals from ABN — a €1bn four year followed by a €750m seven year — before other banks joined the fray. When two more banks did so in October, they used ABN’s deals as a reference

Wider acceptance of EuGBs helped ABN print the third and the longest of its deals at a lower spread than its debut, but it was the original trade that was first among equals.

Greek debt has regained its place in the European bond markets, and in the credit universe the country’s banks were crucial in driving this return. But being part of the full credit spectrum in earnest only happened once Greek banks had issued additional tier one capital on a regular basis.

There had been sporadic Greek AT1s between 2021 and 2024,

but it was in 2025 that they became a mainstay of the European

FIG market. And the first such deal of the year was Eurobank’s

trade in May.

At €500m Eurobank’s debut in the asset class was the first benchmark AT1 offering in nearly four years.

The 6.625% coupon showed Greek AT1s were being sold at levels close to where some established European banks’ deals were pricing, a far cry from the recent past.

The deal was deemed to have landed flat to fair value, having attracted €4bn of orders and paved the way for a quartet of Greek AT1s, including a second deal from Eurobank in November.

Citigroup brought an ultra-rare US bank capital offering to the

euro market in a year charcterised by heavy Reverse Yankee

issuance.

The bank surprised by coming in mid-July — later than an issuer would typically bring a strategic trade — with what was the first US tier two in euros since the start of the global financial crisis.

Since then, US banks have raised subordinated debt in their home market. But as relative value in euros improved for issuers, Citi seized the moment, tapping the euro market a day after releasing its quarterly results.

Moreover, Citi minted the rare 11-year non-call 10 structure,

setting its trade apart from the more common 10 non-call five deals prevalent in euros.

The US lender also achieved tight pricing on the SEC-registered trade, judged by some to have paid a negative new issue premium and pricing flat to dollars.

UBS was instrumental in reviving AT1 issuance in the Australian dollar market with the first foreign deal in six years — and not long after the local regulator phased out the asset class for domestic banks.

The deal silenced doubters who questioned whether AT1s had a future in the currency.

The A$8.6bn of peak demand stemming from onshore and offshore investors showed there was plenty of appetite, even after Credit Suisse’s demise and consequent wipeout of its AT1 capital, which had scarred some buyers in the Asia-Pacific region.

UBS locked in a more favourable funding cost than even the US dollar market offered and where the bank has been a frequent issuer.

Issued from UBS’s EMTN programme, the trade showed how other foreign banks could access Aussie AT1 funding — a market where the last deal from a non-domestic issuer was redeemed in January.

UBS demonstrated confidence in its ability to read investor sentiment as it approached the euro market in the middle of summer.

Its €2bn dual-trancher, priced in August, proved popular, attracting combined orders of more than €12.5bn at a time when primary market activity is typically limited to the odd, smaller trade.

The blowout trade provided the Swiss bank with a diversified slug of funding that cost it only a limited new issue premium.

The deal formed the euro leg of a funding spree that included a $2bn two-part AT1 and a Sfr500m two-part covered bond.

Moreover, UBS’s jumbo outing unleashed an unusually early restart of FIG issuance, surprising market participants with the robust demand that followed other European bank borrowers eager to raise funding in an uncrowded market. None, however, commanded the popularity of UBS’s deal.