Banks

Commerzbank reopened the covered bond market with the first covered bond of the year and the first in more than a month. The generously priced two part transaction was slow to start, but in the context of a weak and volatile market backdrop, the size was impressive.

KfW and the European Investment Bank mandated banks on Wednesday for the first sterling SSA deals of the year. Public sector borrowers are looking to pile into the sterling market before the crunch vote by the UK Parliament on Theresa May’s Brexit deal in mid-January, with deals expected in both Sonia-linked and fixed rate formats.

Sandeep Agarwal, a veteran of the financial institutions bond market, has parted ways with Credit Suisse to join a new company.

Russian shipping firm Sovcomflot has closed a $264m club facility with five international lenders, although the outlook for Russian companies in the syndicated loan market remains questionable going into the new year.

DCM bankers believe financial institutions will seek to hold back on launching new bond deals if markets cannot find a footing at the beginning of the new year.

Considerably cheap valuations have made Weimob, a Tencent Holdings-backed company that is on the road with its Hong Kong IPO, an attractive proposition for equity investors, according to a source close to the listing.

Futu Holdings, parent of Hong Kong-based Futu Securities International, is planning a Nasdaq IPO of up to $300m.

CIMC Vehicles Co is eyeing $500m from a Hong Kong IPO, with plans to launch the listing by the end of the first quarter, according to a source close to the deal.

Asian issuers are setting the stage for their fundraisings nice and early into the New Year, with South Korea’s Hanwha Total Petrochemical Co announcing a bond mandate on Wednesday morning.

The global high yield bond market has produced $320bn of new issues in 2018, up to December 21, 43% down on last year’s total of $563bn, according to Dealogic. Sentiment has turned progressively more bearish as the year has worn on, with concerns about US-China trade hostility and overvaluation of US equities biting.

Deutsche Bank said it has been granted exemption from a financial penalty by the European Commission after the bank was accused — along with three others — for breaching antitrust rules in the trading of SSA bonds.

Commerzbank and LBBW are looking to become one of the first issuers in the euro market in 2019, having both announced new mandates for covered bonds on Friday.