Commerzbank

Credit Suisse and SpareBank 1 priced deals in senior format this week, choosing longer maturities to avoid entering negative yield territory. SpareBank 1’s €500m green bond attracted demand of €700m but leads were not able to tighten pricing to the tight end of their price guidance.

The frenzy of investment grade corporate bond issuance in Europe intensified on Thursday, when eight companies came to market, issuing a total of €6.6bn of paper in euros. That brought the total for the first four days of this week to over €20bn. Despite the heavy supply, issuers have found sufficient demand to support their notes.

Danske Bank has appointed Stephan Engels as chief financial officer, leaving the same post vacant at Commerzbank. The move comes as the Danish lender has been dealing with the fallout from a money laundering scandal, while its German counterpart has warned of difficult business conditions.

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.

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.

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.

Credit Suisse was marketing a 10 year bullet senior bond on Tuesday, avoiding negative yields by choosing a tenor longer than seven years. At the same time, Sparebank 1 announced it was readying its green debut in senior format.

Two near-investment grade industrials made a splash in the high yield bond market on Monday, with both Smurfit Kappa and Thyssenkrupp getting their order books oversubscribed multiple times.

Natixis has been building out its Asia Pacific presence, making some senior changes to its global markets team and adding three new bankers.

After two huge days of corporate bond issuance, Thursday was much quieter, with issues only from Vier Gas Transport and SBB Norden — not because the market was worse, but just because most of the issuers that wanted to come this week had crowded into the first two days.

Deutsche Pfandbriefbank was marketing a five year senior preferred bond in the euro market on Thursday. The deal was launched at a spread unmoved from price thoughts, with order books only €125m larger than the deal size.

The hail of issuance in European corporate bonds continued at full pelt on Wednesday as Orange and National Grid joined the fray with multi-tranche deals. Investors and issuers seem equally eager to do business.