Currencies

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.

Commerzbank has hired Jason Ho as its Hong Kong-based head of Greater China primary bonds, to strengthen its debt underwriting franchise in Asia and in China.

Philippine brandy making company Emperador has closed a €405m borrowing with 13 lenders in the syndicate.

It is hard to think of a more suitable candidate to have opened the Swiss franc market for additional tier one (AT1) issuance to foreign borrowers than Munchener Hypothekenbank (MunHyp). With a loan book in Switzerland of just over Sfr5bn ($5.01bn), the Munich-based mortgage bank is one of the few international borrowers with a natural funding requirement in Swiss francs, which is why it has been a prolific issuer in the currency over the past year.