BNP Paribas

FIG bond bankers are worried, as one put it, that “the steam is coming out of the Kangaroo market” after Thursday’s additional tier 1 (AT1) deal from Société Générale failed to reach the heights of deals from UBS and BNP Paribas earlier in the summer.

BNP Paribas and Deutsche Bank have become the first two foreign banks to receive approvals to underwrite all bonds from non-financial corporations in the Chinese interbank market. While the new licence will expand their underwriting scope in the mainland, it is unlikely to make a big dent to their DCM businesses, or challenge state-owned banks’ dominance. Rebecca Feng reports.

Österreichische Kontrollbank (OeKB), Austria’s export credit agency, will go on roadshow next week to present its recently established sustainability bond framework to European investors. An inaugural bond in the format is expected to follow.

Five new corporate bond issues including a €3bn issue from AT&T hit the market on Wednesday, after Danaher had completed its €6.25bn deal on Tuesday, leaving room for more companies to borrow.

SSA issuers of dollar bonds were able to push harder on spread than they have in recent weeks on Wednesday, surprising syndicate bankers away from the deals.

Sparebank 1 priced a seven year senior preferred bond in green format on Wednesday at mid-swaps plus 65bp. The €500m bond attracted demand of €700m but leads were not able to tighten pricing to the full extent of their ambitions.

Raiffeisen Bank International sold a tier two bond this week, tightening pricing by 40bp. The trade was supported by hefty investor demand of €2.7bn, more than six times the deal's €500m size.

A new flurry of investment grade corporate bond issuers jumped into the market on Wednesday morning, after Danaher priced its €6.25bn five-tranche Reverse Yankee note. Getting that deal out of the way gave other corporate borrowers room to bring bonds of their own — and plenty are expected to in the run-up toe the European Central Bank's monetary policy announcement on September 12.

Financial institution investors, desperate for any sort of yield pick-up are keeping their cash away from secondaries in the hope of earning new issue concessions in a rejuvenated primary market.

Danaher printed its much anticipated €6.25bn jumbo bond issue on Tuesday. The US conglomerate, rated A2/A, focused its five tranches on intermediate to longer tenors, which corporate syndicate bankers took to indicate where many investors want to put their money.

The dollar SSA market burst into life on Tuesday, but some bankers say that the tight spreads and low yields on offer mean there is little guarantee any of the trades will be easy.

ING sold a dollar-denominated additional tier one (AT1) this week, adding an influx of supply in the asset class in recent weeks. It will have the option to redeem its new bonds twice a year after the first call date, instead of the usual five years in all of its outstanding bonds.