Banks

Italian banks rushed to make use of favourable market conditions this week, with Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena and UBI Banca bringing new deals and Fineco Bank lining up an additional tier one (AT1). The window opened after the EU and the Italian government settled their scrap over the latter's budget targets, but market participants fear it won't stay open for long. Daivd Freitas reports.

Guarantor: Federal Republic of Germany

The European Investment Bank (EIB) and KfW reopened the sterling SSA bond market this week with the first public trades since early June. Demand for the currency has been strong all year round, but supply has wavered as a result of a less attractive cross currency basis swap.

Chris Jones, head of local currency syndicate at HSBC, has been put at risk of redundancy by the bank.

Bank Nederlandse Gemeenten printed ultra long paper this week, locking in low yields for the issuer but leaving buyers exposed to big price moves on any rate rise.

The largest second lien tranche since the financial crisis, a Sfr1.3bn-equivalent deal, was placed to just five accounts, GlobalCapital understands, supporting EQT, Luxina and PSP’s $10bn buyout of Nestlé Skin Health. The big second lien tickets illustrate the depth of demand for the product, which has been buoyed by the cash raised for direct lending opportunities — and supports the deal through senior syndication.

Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane, Italy's state railway company, launched a €700m seven year green bond into an otherwise empty corporate bond market on Thursday. The Independence Day holiday in the US kept markets quiet this week, and eager investors may be frustrated next week too.

A public sector debt capital markets banker is returning to NatWest Markets, where she worked between 2010 and 2017, GlobalCapital understands.

Israel sees long dated issuance as an important part of its ‘strategic issuance plan’, according to sources in its Ministry of Finance. Last week, the sovereign returned to the market for a second time in 2019 to extend its euro curve by 20 years, placing its first ever 50 year note through a private placement

Following on from Barclays’ Kangaroo return last month, two more foreign banks looked towards the Australian market on Wednesday. Toronto Dominion Bank placed its inaugural bail-inable Kangaroo and BNP Paribas printed its first Australian dollar AT1 note.

The Republic of Tunisia does not finish its roadshow until Tuesday 9 July, but after a 100bp rally in its euro 2024s since the start of June and strong roadshow meetings so far, a seven year — the longer end of the planned tenor for the benchmark bond — looks to be on the cards.

Société Générale’s revamp of its investment bank, first announced in April, will refocus the bank’s financing efforts around sponsor-driven business, as corporate clients are not steering enough fees towards the bank to pay for its balance sheet commitments.