Europe

Four new corporate bonds hit the market on Wednesday. In a change from recent days, all the deals were of moderate size and single tranched. Terna, the Italian grid operator, and Banque PSA France were typical in launching €500m no-grow deals. Book sizes diverged strongly, with those two issuers getting heavy oversubscription, while Aroundtown and Voestalpine had much less.

Jyske Bank said it was "proud" to have hit its targets with a new additional tier one in the Swedish krona market last week, but a slow bookbuilding process showed how recent money laundering scandals are affecting Nordic financial institutions in the capital markets.

UBI Banca on Wednesday showed that green bonds still rank high on the list of preferences for investors, after it sold a €500m five year senior preferred deal with an order book three times as large.

Foreign & Colonial (F&C) Investment Trust has sold a £150m equivalent US private placement, in euros and sterling, to a range of institutional investors from the UK and United States.

Antoine Broquereau has been appointed as head of global markets UK at Société Générale. He has been tasked with concentrating particularly on equity derivatives and structured products, at a time when the bank has been considering how to streamline its global markets activities.

Citi and KBC Group led the way on Wednesday in what was a very busy day for new bond supply from financial institutions, with issuers taking advantage of stellar market conditions to raise funding ahead of reporting their first quarter earnings.

UniCredit has appointed two co-heads of global financing and advisory, effective immediately.

ECM investors continue to support Russian deals and flooded into a Rub5.8bn ($89m) block in LSR Group, the Russian real estate development company, in what was the latest sell-down by one of the country’s oligarchs.

Toronto–Dominion Bank’s (TD) €1.75bn five year covered bond, which was issued on Wednesday, was priced 13bp tighter than where it might have launched in January when five other Canadian borrowers entered the market with similar deals.

Despite higher than expected issuance so far this year, the covered bond market shows little sign of fatigue. Investors seem desperate to get hold of whatever comes their way, for fear of missing out.

The strength of demand in Europe's corporate bond market this week is showing itself in avid appetite for longer term and higher risk bonds, as investors hunt out yield against a background of low rates. But, somewhat surprisingly, there is also a rampant bid for short term, high quality paper.

Barclays’ head of global finance solutions has quit in a move to the buyside.