Coronavirus

Bank of Nova Scotia issued its first dollar covered bond benchmark since 2016 on Wednesday. The deal follows a series of retained Canadian dollar covered bonds that were pledged to the Bank of Canada after it recently broadened repo eligibility to include the asset class.

The Eurogroup made no progress towards creating a common EU debt instrument on Tuesday night, but member states will be able to fund their responses to the coronavirus crisis through a new credit line with the European Stability Mechanism.

After discussions with the Bank of England and the Sterling Risk-Free Reference Rates Working Group over the impact of Covid-19 on companies’ plans to transition from Libor, the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority said on Wednesday that the final deadline of the end of 2021 was immutable.

Riskier high grade corporate names saw more than €45bn of combined demand for new bonds on Wednesday. Danaher, Carrefour, Bertelsmann, Philips and Heineken were all in the market following a batch of deals from higher rated names a day earlier encourages borrowers to pile in.

Mauricio Cárdenas, Colombia’s finance minister in 2012-18, has told GlobalCapital that emerging market nations would struggle to raise the financing required to fund measures to treat the Covid-19 pandemic and consequent economic slump. “Difficult years are coming” for EM, warned the former official.

US president Donald Trump looks unable to lead a global response to the health and economic crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic, but the dollar is unchallenged as the global safe haven in times of crisis. This contradiction is destabilising.

Europe’s corporate bond market showed the same kind of energy on Tuesday that the US market did three times last week, as a clutch of blue chip issuers launched new deals on the very first day of stability the market offered. Sanofi found huge demand and only a slight slowness from the UK being in lockdown.

GSO Capital Partners, the credit unit of private equity firm Blackstone, has raised roughly $4.5bn for its second European direct lending fund, according to an SEC filing. But as the coronavirus pandemic wrecks corporate balance sheets, several sources are concerned with how European companies will fare.

The primary public sector bond market came back to life on Tuesday as a pair of sovereigns and the European Investment Bank sold deals alongside German states. But it was far from a case of picking up where they left off as borrowers were made to pay new issue premiums of up to 20bp versus the secondary market levels on screens.

Germany has said it will take the unprecedented step of buying equity stakes in German businesses to protect its economy against the damage caused by the spread of the coronavirus.

The UK government’s offer on Friday to pay 80% of the wages of furloughed workers came in the nick of time to save thousands of jobs in manufacturing and services. But few of those affected realised they were benefiting from a German idea. The move highlights how the coronavirus crisis is causing a rapid dissemination of techniques around the world.

Bank of America has become the first financial institution to launch a new deal in the European credit market for over a month. The US lender paid a huge premium for its €1.5bn senior bond on Tuesday, but it was able to move past its initial price thoughts on the back of a solid set of orders from investors.