Danske Bank

Guarantor: Swedish local government members

Kommuninvest built out its Swedish krona green curve benchmark this week with its longest dated bond in the format. There is, however, an expectation that this Skr3.5bn ($382.3m) five year green bond could be the curve’s furthest extent.

Danske Bank and Crédit Agricole took a combined €2bn of tier two debt out of the market on Tuesday, while Bawag was also active on a busy day for FIG syndicates.

The green bond market is still simply too small for its investors to be discerning.

Danske Bank attracted impressive levels of demand for its debut green bond on Tuesday and managed to price the deal flat to fair value. Market participants said that green-specific accounts will have helped the transaction gain momentum, even if funds with environmental, social and governance (ESG) mandates are still smarting over the bank’s alleged involvement in a high profile money laundering scandal.

Norwegian Air Shuttle, the Norwegian airline, has priced its heavily discounted Nkr3bn (€308m) rights issue receiving a high take-up from shareholders, despite safety concerns over some of its fleet and heavy shorting of the stock.

Danske Bank is hoping to place its first issue of green bonds this month, though the market is still awaiting the findings of a series of investigations into money laundering at its branch in Estonia.

Danske Bank has turned to the Norwegian krone market to raise non-preferred senior debt, following closely behind a recent transaction in euros.

Danske Bank paid a higher than average new issue premium for non-preferred senior this week, as the money laundering scandal surrounding the institution deepened with new investigations and supervisory actions.

Danske Bank has picked Bo Søndergaard to be its first head of SRI bond marketing in the DCM syndicate team.

The Estonian Financial Services Authority this week ordered Danske Bank to leave the country. The Danish lender replied that it would exit the Baltics and Russia as a whole. Meanwhile, the Estonian regulator and its Danish counterpart are under investigation for a possible breach of European Union law in relation to Danske’s money laundering scandal.

Two Nordic telecoms companies sold euro corporate bonds this week after both spending nearly two years on the sidelines. Both employed no-grow strategies, and Swedish company Telia sold the longest maturity corporate bond deal of 2019 so far.