BNP Paribas

Riskier high grade corporate names saw more than €45bn of combined demand for new bonds on Wednesday. Danaher, Carrefour, Bertelsmann, Philips and Heineken were all in the market following a batch of deals from higher rated names a day earlier encourages borrowers to pile in.

Confectionery company Néstle, soft drink maker Coca-Cola European Partners and French pharmaceutical company Sanofi piled into Europe's bond market with new issues on Tuesday, suggesting that borrowers are increasingly eager and quick to react when the market shows any signs of stabilising.

Europe’s corporate bond new issue market burst back into life on Friday after a nine day coma with two emphatic, big, generously priced deals from impeccable issuers — exactly the pattern of issuance, although on a smaller scale, that the US market has produced on three days this week. Engie and Unilever raised €4.5bn between them, most of it from investors working at home amid coronavirus quarantines.

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.

Air France-KLM has taken a series of exceptional measures including drawing down on €1.765bn of bank debt, as some lenders say that the industries worst affected by the coronavirus pandemic will lean heavily on their lending banks.

On Monday, a day when European stock indices plummeted, hedge fund giant Bridgewater Associates was executing short positions against 37 of the continent's companies, particularly in France, Germany, Spain and the Netherlands.

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.

Bank of Montreal reopened the dollar market for Yankee banks this week, using ‘shadow books’ to quickly wrap up the sale of its floating-rate note.

Transition bonds, one of the hottest talking points of the past year in the green bond market, made a decisive step forward this week when Cadent Gas, the UK’s largest gas distributor, issued a €500m deal that attracted large orders from environmentally concerned investors, even though some green bond funds shunned it. Jon Hay reports.

Optivo, the UK housing provider, has mandated banks for a long maturity sterling deal, a day after a compatriot housing association found healthy demand for a similar 23 year note in the currency.

A trio of South East Asian issuers have visited the Hong Kong dollar market in the last two weeks, as a move in the basis spurred demand. Among the issuers was Korea’s state-owned mining company Korea Resources Corporation (KORES), which made its debut in the currency and in the MTN format on Monday.

Mexico’s state-owned electric company Comisión Federal de Electricidad (CFE) turned to Taiwan’s bond market this week to sell a dollar bond — its latest foray into the Formosa bond market.