Coronavirus

US companies have smashed the all time record for bond issuance this month, as they plundered the dollar market in a headlong dash for liquidity that continued on Thursday, even though a darker record was broken: 3.3m new unemployment claims, more than four times the previous highest.

As the dust settles on a thunderous week in the European corporate bond market that saw enormous order books and fat new premiums squeezed to nothing in one case, investors and bankers united in joy that the market was not just open again, but bursting with vigour. Central banks and governments had saved the day, they argued. Only a few are worrying about another lurch downwards, though this is more than likely.

Merlin Entertainments, one of last year’s biggest take-privates, has some investors worried about whether it will seek new financing to get it through the coronavirus lockdowns that have shuttered the theme park business’s main sites. Any new financing could weaken the security package for existing lenders and bondholders — though liquidity to get through the lockdowns is essential, writes Owen Sanderson.

The European Central Bank announced on Wednesday night that it would be removing the self-imposed limits on its holdings of sovereign debt for its €750bn pandemic emergency purchase programme. The news drove an impressive reduction in the spread to Bunds on government bonds from the eurozone periphery.

The Schuldschein market’s official lines of bookbuilding have been all but shut during the Covid-19 crisis, but sources have told GlobalCapital that several companies have discreetly approached larger lenders for club or bilateral deals.

The Inter-American Development Bank on Thursday started marketing a five year sustainable development bond in Global format as it looks to become third SSA borrower to jump into the dollar market this week. But SSA issuers that fund in euros will unlikely be able to mirror join the party.

Spain led the way back into primary bond markets in no uncertain terms this week, raising a staggering €10bn of seven year cash and demonstrating that, in spite of the worst bear market in history, investors are still happy to buy at the right price. Pablo de Ramón-Laca Clausen, director-general of the Spanish treasury, talked to GlobalCapital about the experience.

New issue concessions have tumbled in the high grade corporate bond market today. French industrial gases company Air Liquide has rewritten this week's rules by pricing a bond through its own curve on Thursday.

The 2008 financial crisis forged a generation of investment bankers well versed in advising governments — and with many having returned to banking, they are likely to be in demand again. But history suggests banks will not be earning lucrative fees, writes David Rothnie.

Unédic, the French unemployment agency, will have a substantially bigger funding programme for 2020 in response to the coronavirus pandemic, according to its chief financial officer, Jun Dumolard.

European corporates facing months of operational lockdown in the face of the coronavirus pandemic are turning to equity capital markets to secure their survival. But they need to be quick about it with markets so volatile, meaning banks are exploring how to get them in and out of the market without putting them through the long, arduous process of a rights issue.

Hesitant covered bond issuers, that had been waiting for the European Central Bank to commence buying under its Pandemic Emergency Purchase Programme (Pepp), may no longer have an excuse to wait and should return to the market soon — particularly since funding levels are cheap relative to senior unsecured, but also because wider spreads may reflect the deterioration in credit risk as opposed to liquidity risk.