Coronavirus

Portugal will be hoping to mirror the success of Belgium after the latter smashed records in the public sector bond market on Tuesday with the biggest ever order book for an SSA borrower in euros. Both Portugal and Belgium have announced an anticipated increase to their 2020 funding programmes as result of the Covid-19 crisis.

Equity capital markets are adjusting to life in quarantine, with most bankers saying they are well set up to work remotely during Covid-19 lockdowns. Even syndicate bankers, natural sceptics to home working, are starting to have faith that business can be done at a distance.

Trading levels given are bid-side spreads versus mid-swaps and/or an underlying benchmark and bid-yields from the close of business on Monday, March 30. The source for secondary trading levels is ICE Data Services.

Investment grade companies have rushed back to the bond market, while syndicate bankers in riskier and more complex asset classes are wondering when their turns will come. Yum Brands reopened US high yield on Monday, leaving European high yield desks hoping a bold issuer would try this side of the Atlantic. Euro buyers were teased a piece of Carnival's rescue package, but lost out to a strong dollar market.

Royal Dutch Shell has signed a $12bn credit line, three months after securing a similarly sized deal, as the Anglo-Dutch oil major builds up its cash pile in the face of plunging oil demand and prices.

Turkey has joined the list of emerging market countries experimenting with quantitative easing programmes in the wake of the Covid-19 crisis engulfing conventional funding markets.

The loans market has been one part of the capital markets that has perhaps unsurprisingly taken to working from home easier than most. Some loans bankers even see a world after the pandemic where one or two days a week working out of the office becomes the norm.

Italy’s borrowing is set to increase as it attempts to weather the economic impact of coronavirus. But Davide Iacovoni, director general of the Italian public debt office, told GlobalCapital that he did not expect investors to abandon the country’s debt. He also called for some form of European risk sharing.

Equity capital markets are slowly reopening for companies at a time when there is a dire need for funding. However, the Covid-19 sell-off in global stock markets in the past month has meant that funds and asset managers have had limited inflows, meaning they have less cash to use in new deals. This is leading to a higher degree of selectivity.

Standard Chartered’s announcement that it was allocating $1bn to help companies deal with coronavirus, or transition towards making essential medical kit, makes a virtue of doing what most banks are up to anyway. There’s nothing wrong with a bit of good news in these troubled times, but Stan Chart’s competition might feel they’ve missed a trick.

The Finnish Treasury said on Tuesday that it plans to increase its short-term borrowing to fund the government’s emergency fiscal package for the coronavirus outbreak.

Central banks are turning on the money taps and slashing rates in an effort to combat the economic effects of the coronavirus pandemic. The below table details the response to the outbreak from many of the world's largest central banks.