Commerzbank

Italian-American car company Fiat Chrysler has drawn down on its €6.25bn revolving credit facility to shore up its finances during the Covid-19 pandemic, though the company has left a new bridge loan untouched.

Asian Development Bank (ADB) and Agence Francaise de Developpement (AFD) hit the market for dollar paper on Tuesday, with the Manila-based supra going for five years and the French agency opting for three years.

Tesco, the UK grocer, found the queues for its sterling bond issue on Monday were almost as long as those for its toilet roll. Pent-up demand for sterling debt meant its £450m trade was more than eight times oversubscribed and priced through higher rated comparable debt.

Greece did not attract the huge reception from investors that it has grown used to over the last few years, despite paying a considerable new issue premium and being eligible for the European Central Bank’s Pandemic Emergency Purchase Programme (PEPP).

Greece is looking to become the latest eurozone sovereign to sell a seven year syndicated bond, after mandating banks on Tuesday for the transaction.

Rating agency Fitch says that the bleak economic outlook has exposed many of Germany’s banks’ weaknesses, prompting it to take action on the ratings of many of them. Deutsche Bank could become one of Europe’s banks most affected by the recession.

Fashion retailer H&M has signed a €980m revolving credit facility to sit alongside its existing main bank line, as the Swedish company becomes the latest to turn to the bank market to bolster its finances during the coronavirus pandemic.

Infrequent issuers are slowly returning to the Swiss franc market. During the past week, Eurofima brought its first Swissies deal in six years, while biotech firm Lonza printed its first bond in any currency since 2017.

Chunky books and shrinking new issue premiums were everywhere in Europe's high grade corporate bond market on Tuesday, as some investors said the market felt like it had found solid ground again after huge moves in recent weeks.

Having dropped off in early March, Swiss franc issuance has bounced back in the last fortnight, buoyed by returning investors flocking to low investment-grade rated borrowers, like triple-B rated cement manufacturer LafargeHolcim, and piling into a record-breaking foreign covered bond.

Oil firms burst into the corporate bond market on Thursday with BP, Royal Dutch Shell and OMV opening books on multi-tranche trades, as comments from US president Donald Trump sent oil prices rocketing.

Mondi, the paper company based in the UK and Austria, raised €750m on Friday to refinance its €500m bond maturing in September, and put some extra cash by in case of trouble, with a bond issue that it went ahead with on a down day for equities, even as some other companies opted not to issue.