Deutsche Bank

The public sector euro market’s thundering start to the year stayed noisy on Thursday as a quartet of smaller issuers from across the continent printed oversubscribed deals.

Telecom Italia attracted €4.5bn of orders on Tuesday, which was no mean feat, having to contend with a €4bn four-tranche Orange deal in the market on the same day, but also the uncertainty surrounding the Italian government and its budget hanging over the country’s economy. This, combined with the company’s Ba1/BB+/BBB- ratings, meant it had to offer what research house CreditSights saw as a 90bp premium to its secondary curve for the new 5.25 year deal.

Sterling issuance from non-UK public sector borrowers has made by far its strongest ever start to a calendar year, with borrowers and bankers citing liquidity-laden investors and a crucial parliamentary vote on Brexit next week as factors behind the rush. Council of Europe Development Bank (CEB) and FMS Wertmanagement added to the feast on Thursday, while Inter-American Development Bank will bring yet another trade this Friday.

Turkey made its first capital markets foray of the year with a $2bn bond issue on Wednesday. But bankers were divided on the deal's success.

Public sector borrowers might switch some of their attention away from a rampant euro market towards dollars, said SSA bankers, after the Inter-American Development Bank and Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations brought strong trades in the currency on Wednesday.

Appetite for eurozone sovereigns is showing no signs of slowing down after Ireland and Portugal joined Belgium this week in scoring their largest ever syndication order books. Several other borrowers sold euro trades on Wednesday, with more supply expected this week as the pipeline has “accelerated” ahead of next week’s parliamentary vote on the UK’s Brexit deal.

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development on Wednesday became the third public sector borrower to issue an inaugural Sonia-linked bond in 2019, with the deal marking the borrower’s largest sterling bond to date.

After a run of triple-B rated corporate bond issuance, A-rated names have returned to the market and paid lower premiums than the higher beta issuers had, but 10.75 years remains the longest tenor to date.

Small benchmark covered bond deals issued on Wednesday by Deutsche Bank’s Spanish subsidiary and UniCredit’s Austrian subsidiary were slow to build and priced in line with initial guidance. This led some to question whether this was due to a degree of unease with their parent groups or whether investors baulked at the pricing process.

Turkey has come to market for a 10 year dollar benchmark, reasserting its status as one of emerging market bonds' most frequent borrowers after a turbulent 2018.

Zhenro Properties Group bagged $200m from a short-dated bond on Tuesday — being strategic with its choice of a 363-day tenor, while also finding an opportunistic issuance window on a day market sentiment was on a high.

The European Investment Bank and Bank Nederlandse Gemeenten showed the strength of the dollar market on Tuesday as they sparked the sector into life for 2019 with benchmarks offering minimal concession. Another pair of SSAs are hoping to emulate that success on Wednesday.