Euro

The Republic of Indonesia made an opportunistic outing this week, tapping both the dollar and the euro bond markets for about $3bn. The sovereign started the year with a different approach to its annual funding, in a bid to take advantage of strong liquidity in both the currencies, writes Morgan Davis.

A strong reception for a five year euro benchmark by KfW on Tuesday was enough to lure in a hesitant flock of public sector borrowers to the euro market as the pipeline stacks up for Wednesday’s business.

The Republic of Slovenia became the first CEEMEA issuer to print a bond this decade, quickly launching a €1.5bn deal from a book of €11.75bn on Tuesday.

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.

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

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.

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.

Italy printed an €800m 20 year inflation linked private placement on Thursday, satisfying demand from a single investor.