Barclays

AP Moeller-Maersk, the Danish shipping conglomerate, this week issued its first benchmark euro bond since issuing a profit warning in October. Investors were price sensitive, but bankers away from the a €600m seven year trade were impressed with the book size for such a challenging story.

Réseau de Transport d’Électricité issued a benchmark 10 year bond on Thursday that grew to €1bn, as a French-driven order book for the bond hit €3.5bn.

Russia bonds burst back to the top of the emerging market priority list without a sanction being lifted after Alfa Bank smashed through its own yield curve on Wednesday. Demand is rampant among supply-starved investors who will be gleeful about the thawing of the geopolitical frost between Russia and the west, writes Francesca Young.

Réseau de Transport d’Electricité issued a benchmark 10 year bond on Thursday that grew to €1bn, as a French-driven order book for the bond hit €3.5bn.

Alfa Bank’s print of $500m 5% 2018s on Wednesday, which smashed 25bp through its own curve, demonstrated how big investor demand for Russian credit has become as the geopolitical frost begins to thaw.

UK building materials producer Breedon is eyeing a move to main market of the London Stock Exchange after its £336m acquisition of competitor Hope Construction Materials.

Avago Technologies, the US semiconductor components maker, has increased the €500m tranche of its term loan ‘B’ to €900m on strong demand, another sign of the European leveraged loan market's competitiveness at the moment.

Bankers and investors on Wednesday said the failure of Veritas Technologies' $2.5bn bond deal — which was pulled along with an accompanying $3.3bn loan package on Tuesday — showed evidence of familiar weaknesses and errors in the European high yield market.

British American Tobacco has offered the sterling market its second long dated bond in as many days, a £350m 40 year tranche as part of a €1.1bn offering.

The order book for Russian Alfa Bank’s first senior unsecured bond in three years has reached $2.75bn, and guidance for the three year note has been crunched to 5.125% area.

The weakness of the US leveraged finance market was brought home to market participants with a jolt on Tuesday, when the Carlyle Group, which is buying Veritas Technologies, a US data storage company, abandoned its attempt to raise $3.3bn of debt for the deal.

Investor demand for Asian debt was put to the test this week when Singapore's Stats ChipPac executed the region’s first non-Chinese high yield bond in more than three months.