Currencies

The pipeline is starting to fill in the public sector bond market with the European Investment Bank and Kommunalbanken set to bring dollar deals and KfW preparing its first euro benchmark of the year. More deals — including the first sovereign syndication of the year— are set to follow this week.

Industrial Securities (Hong Kong) Financial Holdings, Zhengzhou Zhongrui Industrial Group Co and Shandong Iron & Steel Group Co priced international bonds during the last days of 2019, capping a strong year for Asia’s debt market.

Singapore-based aircraft leasing company Avation has obtained a green loan to support its purchase of aircraft.

Cigarette packaging printer Amvig Holdings has closed its HK$1.15bn ($147m) refinancing loan.

The Netherlands will kick off its funding programme in 2020 with a reopening of its inaugural green bond via a Dutch Direct Auction.

Singapore’s CapitaLand Commercial Trust dove into the yen market this month to sell its inaugural green bond.

The Swiss franc bond market has been able to withstand — just — the destructive forces of negative rates and yields and is looking forward to a new year in which green structures are set to blossom. Philip Moore reports

For public sector issuers, niche currency deals have offered attractive opportunities for arbitrage funding, with spreads into euros and dollars spurring on demand this year. Meanwhile, strong investor appetite for green paper has seen niche shoots blossom throughout 2019. Frank Jackman reports

Building on the success of last week’s multi-tranche Sfr1.1bn ($1.1bn) trade, Pfandbriefbank (PS Hypo) rounded off its funding for 2019 on Monday, with a low-key two-tranche Sfr310m issue.

BlackRock is bearish on the prospects of the government bond market in 2020, thanks to the exhaustion of monetary policy as a means of generating growth. Instead, the world’s largest asset manager is looking to move deeper into riskier assets such as emerging markets where there is still room for further easing.

Morgan Stanley has been fined €20m by the Autorité des Marchés Financiers (AMF) for manipulation of French and Belgian government bond prices. The bank intends to appeal the fine.

Compelling evidence emerged this week showing how much liquidity local investors are still looking to deploy in the Swiss franc market as the year’s end looms. On Monday, it took just 45 minutes for books to open and close on three clips of Pfandbriefbank paper.