Barclays

Despite current market turbulence, Kommuninvest, the funding body for Swedish local governments, still plans to press on with its debut euro green bond when volatility abates, according to its head of debt management.

A vicious move in swap spreads left investors in IFC’s $1bn social bond with one of the lowest SSA spreads to US Treasuries ever on Wednesday, and a subsequent reversal has left investors wincing. Some questioned the strategy and timing of the trade, but most simply thought that investors were the victim of circumstance.

As the coronavirus pandemic threatens every facet of capital markets activity, trading floors and back offices have emptied in recent days, leading to questions about how efficiently business can be done from home and alternative sites, write Paola Aurisicchio, Jasper Cox, Jennifer Kang and Ross Lancaster.

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British American Tobacco has signed the first multicurrency revolving credit facility that uses a variety of risk-free rates as benchmarks, potentially clearing a hurdle that loan market participants have long said was hindering the transition from Libor.

International Finance Corporation defied volatility to achieve an impressive result in the dollar public sector bond market on Wednesday as it managed to bring in the spread by 4bp to price through the European Investment Bank.

India’s Tata Steel and Birla Carbon have decided not to syndicate their chunky loans, amid reluctance from the bookrunners to sell down their positions in a slowing market for deals.

Europe's high grade corporate bond issuers are being pushed into tight issuing windows by volatility caused by the Covid-19 coronavirus. But investors are prepared for this and so far deals have found strong backing.

Lancashire County Council raised £350m ($453.5m) of five year cash on Thursday through the UK Municipal Bonds Agency platform. It is the first local authority to do so since the MBA was set up.

British American Tobacco is considering switching its existing revolving credit facility from Libor to Sonia, following Royal Dutch Shell’s trail-blazing Sofr-linked syndicated loan last year. The move would demonstrate a more galvanised move away from Libor in the loan market.

Schneider Electric, the French electrical equipment company, and Carlsberg, the Danish brewer, zipped through the open window for corporate bond issuance on Wednesday, as bankers say coronavirus volatility has made this a market for opportunists.

Two German states rebooted the primary SSA market on Tuesday with intraday deals at the opposite ends of the euro curve. The five year deal was almost two times covered but there were no book updates for the 15 year.