Banks

Agence Française de Développement (AFD) will tap the dollar market this week to become the latest public sector borrower to print a bond in response to the coronavirus pandemic.

The European Financial Stability Facility received plenty of demand for an intraday dual tranche bond sale to complete its funding for the period from April to June with its first issuance window of the second quarter.

Italy mandated banks for a new five year to be sold alongside a tap of a September 2050 bond on Monday as it prepares to bolt on a bigger funding programme in order to fund its effort against the coronavirus pandemic. The sovereign will be joined by Luxembourg in the euro public sector bond market on Tuesday.

Europe’s high grade corporate issuers began the week deploying their recent tactic of tightening spreads aggressively during bookbuilding from cheap starting points, with Elia Transmission Belgium ratcheting in its spread by 60bp from initial price thoughts.

US entities of two of the Big Four accounting firms have entered the private placement market. KPMG sold US private placements in early April, according to market sources, while Deloitte is looking to follow suit.

Tesco, the UK grocer, found the queues for its sterling bond issue on Monday were almost as long as those for its toilet roll. Pent-up demand for sterling debt meant its £450m trade was more than eight times oversubscribed and priced through higher rated comparable debt.

BPCE seized an opportunity to launch €1.5bn of preferred senior funding this week — an asset class that has outperformed all other bank funding products in the market in recent trading sessions.

Credit Bank of Moscow, one of the few Russian banks to frequently tap the international syndicated lending market, has raised a loan from a consortium of international banks. The deal comes amid an increasing number of Covid-19 infections being reported in Russia, which is now one of the emerging markets with the fastest-accelerating growth of cases.

Aston Martin, the UK luxury car maker, has successfully completed its £371m heavily dilutive rights issue, with a high take-up from shareholders, including a consortium led by Canadian billionaire Lawrence Stroll.

CLSA has hired Charles Lin, the former Asia chief executive of Vanguard Group, as its new vice chairman effective immediately, the bank announced on Monday.

Austria made a rare trip to the dollar market last Thursday as it raised $600m via a reverse enquiry-led private placement, GlobalCapital understands.

Henri Mills has been made UBS's first head of global markets distribution for France, the Benelux and Nordic regions.