Europe

Investors are returning to the covered bond, sovereign and supranational agency (SSA) markets in their droves. Despite exceptionally heavy issuance, the startling breadth and depth of demand seen in many deals this week caught market participants off guard — not least the investors themselves. Bill Thornhill reports.

PKO Bank Hipoteczny (PKO), Deutsche Pfandbriefbank (PBB) and Raiffeisenlandesbank NiederÖsterreich-Wien (RLB-NW) all found strong demand for their €500m covered bond deals this week.

Fearful of missing out and in the absence of competing credit supply, investors piled into higher yielding covered bonds offered by Canadian, Australian and Swedish issuers this week. A negative new issue premium Royal Bank of Canada’s five year epitomised the state of investor frenzy.

The Republic of Turkey on Thursday returned to the capital markets for the second time this month, launching a €1.25bn six year bond and taking advantage of a recent buying spree in the country’s bonds.

Société Générale this week issued a highly oversubscribed €1bn eight year that paved the way for follow-on French covered bonds from Credit Mutuel CIC — which attracted a €5bn order book for its two part deal — and La Banque Postale.

French hotel company Accor launched new hybrid and senior bond issues on Thursday after announcing the deals at the end of last week. The new deals finance tender offers for some of the company’s existing hybrid and senior notes.

Korea Western Power (Kowepo) chose an appropriate week to launch the first ever green bond in Swiss francs from an emerging market issuer – and not just because sustainability was high on the agenda at Davos. The deal also came in a week in which representatives from the IFC and the Swiss Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) met in Bern to discuss the results of a consultation on impact investing among more than 100 members of the Association of Swiss Sustainable Finance (SSF).

Germany’s largest residential property company Vonovia attracted €4.5bn of demand for its latest deal on Thursday, as the property sector continues to be one of the more popular in the corporate bond market.

IBM returned to the euro corporate bond market for the first time since 2017 on Thursday, to sell its largest ever deal in the euro market and to push into a maturity not seen from a corporate issuer so far in 2019.

Regardless of when the US government shutdown ends, it will likely have wrought chaos on this year’s IPO market. Staff at the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) have already been locked out of their offices for more than 34 days, frustrating a multitude of issuers that are waiting for the regulator to comment on their registration documentation. Sam Kerr reports.

KBC Group was able to approach fair value with a senior bond offering on Monday, as the positivity of the previous few sessions had encouraged less frequent issuers like it and Sydbank to try the market.

French supermarket chain Auchan attracted plenty of demand for its third consecutive January new issue but it had to pay a hefty new issue premium to ensure the deal got done. The supermarket sector is one of several retail sectors priming investors for poor annual results.