On Wednesday, Finland raised $1.5bn with a 0.875% May 2030 syndication at a spread of mid-swaps plus 30bp — 5bp inside of initial price thoughts — with a $4.6bn order book. Barclays, Bank of America, HSBC and Société Générale ran the deal.
The strong demand allowed Finland to increase the size of the deal from an initial target of $1bn. It was Finland’s first dollar deal since September 2017 and its biggest in the currency since April 2016.
“We are really pleased with the outcome given that we’ve been absent from the dollar market for three years,” said Anu Sammallahti, deputy director of funding at Finland’s treasury finance division. “While dollars are a strategic priority for us, we are still conscious of its cost effectiveness as a funding source. Over the past few years, it wasn’t so cost effective for a euro-based issuer like us, but now it’s more attractive we were happy to take the opportunity to issue.”
On Tuesday, Cades took $3bn with a 0.375% May 2023 bond at a spread of mid-swaps plus 24bp — 6bp inside of initial price thoughts — with a final book of over $7.8bn. BNP Paribas, HSBC, JP Morgan and Société Générale ran the deal.
It was Cades’ first dollar benchmark since 2018. Like Finland, the reason for Cades’ long absence in the currency was due to the steep funding cost versus euros.
“We could not be more happy with this transaction,” said Philippe Noel, head of capital markets at Cades. “We have never tightened by 6bp during execution before, which shows the market is ready to absorb such price tightening. I was very surprised to see so few orders drop at the final spread. We only lost one central bank, one UK-based bank treasury and some hedge funds.”
A number of other SSAs achieved strong results in the dollar market this week, including the European Investment Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, Nordic Investment Bank and NRW.Bank.
See Bond Comments section for more details on this week’s deals.
