Europe

NRW.Bank mandated banks on Wednesday for a 10 year euro bond, in what is the agency’s first benchmark since rules were changed to allow the bank to be dissolved by law only.

UniCredit surprised investors with its speed when it sold a €1bn block in FinecoBank on Tuesday — the same day it announced that it would seek to reduce its stake in the online brokerage.

Co-operative Group returned to the sterling market on Wednesday with its first senior deal since 2011 and was set to price an increased transaction at the tight end of guidance.

Russian Railways is embarking on a roadshow to market its first green bond, which DCM bankers say is the first international green bond from the country. It it entering the market despite a round of US sanctions seeming to be on the way.

FIG bond issuers this year have been enjoying favourable conditions and heavy demand, but there is growing scepticism that it will continue. Some analysts believe spreads and new issue premiums cannot shrink much further.

The souring of trade talks between the US and China has sounded a bum note this week to what Greece had hoped would be a harmonious market in looking to price its benchmark bond. Bankers now believe the sovereign should wait for a better opportunity.

Softness in risk asset markets has not choked off the flow of new high yield issues in Europe, though there are no investment grade new issues on Wednesday, a French holiday. Virgin Media is holding investor calls today for a new $825m and £300m senior secured issue, rated Ba3/BB-/BB+.

Barclays Bank kept the primary covered bond market alive on Wednesday, launching its first deal of the year and its first Sonia-linked transaction — though at £500m it was the bank’s smallest covered bond yet.

Primary equity market bankers are still struggling to bridge the gap between the expectations of buyers and sellers, hindering new deal supply.

Investors are aghast that Turkey’s national election board has cancelled the results of the Istanbul mayoral race, which the country's president Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ruling party lost in March, and ordered a rerun. The country’s currency and CDS took a hit on Tuesday and is still reeling.

Shares in Siemens rose by 4.3% on Wednesday morning after the German engineering conglomerate released its second-quarter earnings and announced it plans to spin off its gas and power business.

After a couple of slow weeks for corporate bond issuance in Europe, the pace quickened somewhat on Tuesday, with two €500m no-grow issues. One was from a familiar name - Carrefour, the French supermarket chain - the other from a new one, Samhällsbyggnadsbolaget i Norden, a Swedish residential property company founded only in 2016.