Barclays

Russian steel company Evraz raised $750m from a bond that was printed tight to secondary levels on Thursday as it benefited from huge pent up demand for Russian corporate paper, even in a volatile market for metals and mining firms.

German agency KfW will take the sustainability criteria of banks into account when they pitch for its green bond business — a move that could ensure the growing SRI market keeps true to its founding principles. But as Craig McGlashan reports, the decision could also slash the number of banks involved in the sector, which has been one of the few bright spots in the public sector bond markets this year.

African Development Bank — AfDB

The crunch is coming. The Middle East loan market has long offered low margins and lashings of liquidity but pricing is widening, just as issuers flock to the market in droves, writes Elly Whittaker.

American Honda Finance visited the sterling bond market for a £250m seven year deal on Monday, in the same week that Total and Daimler also raised short dated sterling bonds.

Unitymedia, the German cable operator, this week priced €420m of senior secured 10 year notes to yield 4.625%, the wide end of price talk.

Oil services company Fugro on Thursday cut the size of its credit facilities from €775m to €500m, with one bank dropping from out of the lending group.

Russian steel company Evraz has set the yield on a long five year benchmark at 8.25% area, a level that bankers away from the deal said was roughly in line with where he calculated fair value for the bond.

Inner Mongolia-based China Shengmu Organic Milk is testing appetite in the syndicated loan market for a $120m three year facility and is offering banks an attractive yield of more than 300bp.

Unitymedia, one of Germany’s largest cable operators, launched a €420m senior secured high yield bond today.

African Development Bank brought in more than $600m of orders for a no-grow $500m December 2018 global green bond on Wednesday, a deal that bankers involved felt might not have worked as well without the socially responsible investment tag.

Corporate bond bankers are busy, for this time of year. While they are usually up for doing deals, it is clear investors, too, are in no hurry to close their books for the year, but are keen to buy paper, despite the let-down of the European Central Bank’s lukewarm QE boost last week.