Belgian Sovereign

As European sovereigns gear up for a busy period of auctions in late August and September, here are the latest funding figures for selected issuers.

France, Germany and Spain held well received auctions of medium to long term debt this week. Here is a round-up of key European sovereigns' funding figures.

Province of Ontario and KfW mandated banks for dollar benchmark on Monday afternoon. If the deals are met with a strong response, they could encourage other issuers to look to sell dollar issues next week.

Belgian bond yields spiked sharply and short term French and Germany yields jumped at auction on Monday, a trend that is likely to affect other eurozone sovereigns preparing for a busy week of issuance in volatile trading conditions.

This week's funding scorecard focuses on some of Europe's key sovereigns. Next week's scorecard will offer an update on Spanish regions and gencies.

Belgium took a flexible approach to funding this week, printing a pair of privately placed callable notes — a rare structure for a sovereign issuer.

Investor hesitance in the face of a rates sell-off that took up the whole of May and shows no sign of abating has resulted in dwindling enthusiasm for SSA new issues as the EIB and Belgium have found out so far this week.

Belgium has launched a five year dollar Eurobond designed to exploit an arbitrage opportunity thrown up by a move in the euro/dollar basis swap. The deal will be priced later on Monday although the deal remains some way short of fully sold.

Belgium printed on Wednesday its first floating rate note in OLO format since February 2011. The deal was a response to demand for investors and banks looking for paper that offers protection against potentially increasing rates.

Belgium responded to bank demand for floating rate paper on Wednesday by announcing a five year FRN. The sovereign, which will price the deal later on Wednesday afternoon, was approached by banks which have been looking to print such a deal for some time.

SSA issuers are queuing up to print new business after a week that saw a rampant dollar market which included $10bn of new funding for the EIB and KfW and the first Spanish dollar trade in four years, and a euro market which gobbled up a new Belgian OLO and forgave Agence Française de Développement for attempting too tightly priced a deal a fortnight ago (see separate coverage).

The euro market was easily outshone by dollars this week. While it produced a pair of benchmarks that were comfortably oversubscribed, the concession that issuers had offered contrasted sharply with dollars, where three issuers priced $13bn of debt in just 48 hours at levels right on top of their curves. But that’s no reason for despair, the euro market is still robust.