Europe

The UK Debt Management Office (DMO) is forecasting £118.1bn of financing needs for 2019 to 2020, with almost 20% of that to come through syndicated bond sales.

Unédic priced through fair value for its first bond of the year on Wednesday, as the European Central Bank’s announcement of fresh liquidity supercharged an already red hot euro SSA market. African Development Bank will hope to find similar success in the 10 year part of the curve after mandating banks for its first benchmark of the year.

Both Kommunalbanken (KBN) and the International Finance Corporation (IFC) came to the Kangaroo market this week. A need for long dated Australian dollar paper from Japanese investors drove the deals.

UniCredit Bank Austria returned to the covered bond market for the second time this year on Wednesday extending its curve with a a new 10 year deal.

There was a dark mood in equity markets on Wednesday morning after the UK parliament rejected prime minister Theresa May’s negotiated Brexit withdrawal agreement by a huge majority for a second time. A possible delay to the UK's departure from the EU and all of the crippling uncertainty that entails is set to continue to hamstring equity capital markets.

Corporate debt markets are behaving as if Brexit didn’t exist. Issuers are swimming in demand that astonishes seasoned observers — and market participants, though they may be scratching their heads in puzzlement at the UK’s erratic career, are unanimous that business can go full steam ahead.

No matter how close UK politicians are to settling negotiations for the country’s departure from the European Union, many participants in the FIG market are longing to see Brexit as a done deal.

Public sector bond investors are putting contingency plans in place for a no-deal Brexit, following the UK parliament’s overwhelming rejection of prime minister Theresa May’s revised withdrawal agreement on Tuesday evening.

Deutsche Telekom became the latest blue chip company to issue a two tranche bond with no new issue concession on Tuesday, making it three deals out of three so far this week that have come without any sweetener for investors, compared with secondary spreads.

A vote to leave the EU has left the population of the UK divided. The country’s banking sector will increasingly come to share in this division, with the largest financial institutions able to muddle on in capital markets even as smaller lenders find themselves beholden to events in domestic politics.

Investors were so enthused by an offering in Norilsk Nickel, the Russian nickel and palladium mining and smelting company, on Tuesday night that bookrunners increased the sale to $550m, and the stock has continued to perform well in trading.

A Sk1.8bn (€102.1m) trade in Loomis, the Swedish cash handling company, on Monday night led to a structural change in the company’s shares, with the firm no longer having a dual class share structure.