Barclays

Italy and Portugal showed this week that any concerns about the pace of eurozone quantitative easing halving to €30bn from January were overdone as they each built their largest ever benchmark books. Italy’s trade was particularly notable, as it was the last syndication by its retiring head of funding — and market stalwart — Maria Cannata.

Records were tumbling this week as countries, companies and credit institutions were met with a wall of cash for new bond offerings across the globe — prompting speculation that primary capital markets may well be at the very height of their capacity. Tyler Davies reports.

Chinese conglomerate Tencent brought cheer to the dollar bond market on Thursday as it tapped pent-up demand with a four-part benchmark trade that amassed a $40bn order book.

The European Investment Bank put the strength of the appetite for duration in the euro market to the test on Thursday, becoming the first borrower of the year to attack the ultra long end of the curve.

Public sector issuers rounded out a superlative week for dollars with sparkling results across the curve on Thursday. Bankers are confident that issuers wishing to print in the coming weeks should find that investor demand outweighs any of the political concerns that brought volatility to rates over the last few days.

Jefferies has hired a new co-head of European emerging market credit trading and sales from Barclays.

UK property website operator Zoopla announced the first deal of 2018 in the European high yield market this week, a sub-benchmark sized bond in sterling.

The euro market is providing SSA borrowers with ever more impressive execution — the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) pulled off the largest supranational or agency deal of the year on Wednesday — but it faces a fresh challenge on Thursday: ultra long debt.

A combined €48bn of cash swelled the orderbooks for Italy and Portugal’s deals on Wednesday, dispelling any fears that the reduction of the European Central Bank’s quantitative easing programme would hamper demand.

The Inter-American Development Bank provided further proof on Wednesday that there is deep demand at the five year part of the dollar curve — but another supranational is stepping up to test the long end of the currency for the first time this year.

On Tuesday multi-tranche and green bond issuance returned to the investment grade corporate bond market, leaving just the hybrid asset class untouched in 2018. That didn’t last long, as Engie and Aroundtown launched new hybrid deals on Wednesday morning, one of which set new lows for the product's coupon and spread levels.

The euro market is providing borrowers with superb execution — KfW gathered its largest ever book for a 10 year on Tuesday — but investors are requiring healthy new issue concessions in order to commit.