Europe

Finnish nuclear power company Teollisuuden Voima (TVO) got a warm reception from the investors on Wednesday, when it sold €550m of senior unsecured notes after a 20bp tightening from initial price thoughts.

Demand for the Republic of Finland’s latest bond was high on Wednesday as it printed through the ECB deposit rate to sell “the most expensive syndication of all time”, according to a banker on the deal. The five year note came 29.9bp richer than Austria’s previous record holding deal, another five year note sold in June.

Bawag was looking to launch its first non-preferred senior bond on Wednesday, joining a crowd of other financial institutions targeting sales of senior products in the euro market this week.

A flight to safety is underway leaving little support for the riskier bits of leveraged finance. A Finnish nuclear power company is, however, marketing a deal in the high yield bond market and one investor told GlobalCapital he expects to see others follow suit rather than tap the loan market.

TeamViewer was the first European issuer to test the IPO market after the summer lull on Tuesday. Sources close to the deal hope that the German software company’s high growth business model will allow it to sail through tricky markets.

BBVA was marketing an additional tier one bond on Wednesday, making use of the favourable conditions that other issuers have found for similar instruments in the dollar market, while BNP Paribas, Bank of Nova Scotia and Bawag kept euro investors busy.

Kommunalbanken brought its green bond framework to the Swedish krona market for the first time last week to place its seventh green note, its first since August 2018. The move into the currency follows a wider trend of major SSA issuers funding in niche currencies as raising debt in core markets becomes harder, according to bankers.

Investors in unsecured bank debt instruments are unlikely to put up much of a fight against the inevitable march into negative yielding new issuance.

Geopolitical tensions, particularly the increasingly hostile relationship between the US and China, have driven some equity investors to take a risk averse position in preparation for a choppy autumn.

Alteri Investors, backed by Apollo Global Management, is launching a second investment vehicle focused on the European retail sector, as it sees opportunities to invest in that troubled industry.

European bank funding plans do not account for the redemption of about a quarter of the €740bn they borrowed from the European Central Bank through the targeted longer-term refinancing operations (TLTRO II), according to a report published by the European Banking Authority this week.

US toymaker Hasbro is to take up on $3.6bn new debt to buy media company Entertainment One, acquiring porcine superstar Peppa Pig, among other brands, if rival bidders don’t scupper the deal. Hasbro may choose to pay a make-whole price to Entertainment One’s bondholders, who bought the company's issue less than three months ago, a research company predicts.