Banks

Regular Kangaroo issuer Daimler came to the market on Thursday with its first Australian dollar issuance of 2019. Through its Australian entity, Mercedes-Benz Australia/Pacific, Daimler sold an A$150m ($106.2m) 2.5% March 2022 unsubordinated bond.

Emirates NBD brought its first additional tier one (AT1) bond to market on Wednesday, printing the Middle East’s largest deal in the format. Now others in the emerging markets are set to follow.

The exceptionally strong demand in Europe’s corporate bond market has remained unaffected by the turmoil in the UK’s Parliament, as MPs vote night after night on repeated motions that could determine the country’s future inside or outside Europe. On Thursday, two issuers attracted huge books: Marsh & McLennan Companies, the US insurance and investment services group making its debut in euros, and Incommunities Group, a Leeds-based housing association, in sterling.

Intesa Sanpaolo took advantage of the search for yield among Japanese investors this week to make its second outing in the Tokyo Pro-Bond market.

The African Development Bank sold a 10 year benchmark in euros on Thursday that bankers said priced through fair value. Land Schleswig-Holstein was also in the market for the same tenor that extended its curve to 2029.

European high yield investors are as eager to buy bonds as their investment grade counterparts — the difference is, while IG issuers have been pouring paper into the market, high yield has been in a drought. But that is at last starting to break.

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) is considering making covered bonds eligible for repo, but Singapore dollar issuance would probably be needed, delegates at the Euromoney/ECBC Asian Covered Bond Forum heard this week. Domestic currency issuance would improve the resilience of Singapore’s banking system and potentially encourage other banks to set up programmes.

World Bank raised $4.5bn of five year bonds on Tuesday with its first dollar benchmark of the year. Municipality Finance (MuniFin) joined it at the tenor a day later, but this is widely expected to be SSA issuers’ last hurrah in the currency for a few weeks.

India’s equity capital market is on edge as Embassy Office Parks Real Estate Investment Trust prepares the country’s first Reit IPO. But while the hotly-anticipated listing has global institutional investors chomping at the bit, the deal may be a one-off treat as the issuer has very few peers.

Hong Kong’s securities regulator has fined Bank of America, Morgan Stanley, Standard Chartered and UBS after investigations into the banks’ sponsorship of a series of IPOs. The Swiss bank has also had its sponsor licence revoked for a year. Jonathan Breen reports.

United Overseas Bank (UOB) became the first Singaporean issuer to sell a Panda bond this week, raising Rmb2bn ($298m) from a three year deal. Rebecca Feng reports.

Commercial banks have been flexing their muscles in the Schuldschein market, with three international deals being marketed without a Landesbank in sight.