Euro

Issue Rating: Baa2/BBB-

Italy’s bonds suffered another day of rising yields on Thursday after the country’s government appointed Eurosceptics to head financial committees.

Telecom Italia became the first Italian corporate to sell a bond deal since the new Italian government was installed but found fates conspired against it as Italian government bonds fell throughout the day.

It was the deal the corporate bond market had been waiting for. German pharmaceuticals company Bayer had flagged a €22bn bond equivalent bond deal to finance its acquisition of Monsanto. The deal was executed efficiently in the dollar and euro markets, but what wasn’t expected was the wave of confidence that washed over the rest of the European corporate bond market as a result.

Volkswagen used the slipstream of the upbeat corporate bond market this week to print the largest corporate hybrid bond deal of the year to date. The dual tranche offering garnered €8bn of demand.

Spanish electricity utility Iberdrola has been one of the leading corporate issuers of green bonds and, on Thursday, it took its total green issuance to more than €7bn with its latest offering.

French toll road operator Autouroutes du Sud de la France kept up the positive tone in the IG corporate bond market with a 10 year deal on Thursday, which it was able to increase in size and price with a single digit new issue premium.

Bayer’s €5bn four-tranche corporate bond offering on Tuesday not only cleared the way for other issuers to approach the market, but the €22.5bn of demand gave four issuers the confidence to sell a variety of deals in Europe on Wednesday. €3.5bn was issued in the euro market and £1bn in sterling.

German pharmaceutical company Bayer's $15bn and €5bn issuance this week provided the first big M&A related issuance the euro investment grade corporate bond market has seen for three months. However, following a court ruling in the US on AT&T's planned acquisition of Time Warner, there is likely to be more to come. Investors are aware of the need for careful analysis however.

BMC Software, the US IT firm, has revealed the loan leg of the funding for its leveraged buyout by KKR, a $4.4bn facility in dollars and euros. It is the first multi-billion leveraged loan deal for four weeks, after a battery of large offerings early in May.

German pharmaceutical company Bayer delivered on its plans to raise more than €20bn in senior bonds with an eight tranche dollar deal on Monday and a four tranche euro transaction on Tuesday. The dollar deal was three times oversubscribed and the euro deal nearly 4.5 times.

German pharmaceutical company Bayer is set to contribute to one of the largest weeks of the year by issuance volume for the corporate bond market. Other issuers are watching the developments of that deal closely and planning their own movements around it.