Europe

Commerzbank reopened the covered bond market with the first covered bond of the year and the first in more than a month. The generously priced two part transaction was slow to start, but in the context of a weak and volatile market backdrop, the size was impressive.

The European Financial Stability Facility sent out a request for proposals on Wednesday, with the issuer likely to kick off its 2019 funding with a big trade in the short to mid part of the euro curve, according to bankers.

Europe’s equity capital markets are going to reopen in 2019 against one of the most difficult macroeconomic backdrops in recent memory, after the FTSE 100 suffered its worst yearly fall since the financial crisis last year and most other major equity indices finished 2018 deeply in the red.

The European Central Bank has seized control of Banca Carige after a majority of board members resigned. The new administrators include the old CEO and chair, originally proposed by the Malacalza family, as well as a lawyer with experience of merging financial entities.

Russian shipping firm Sovcomflot has closed a $264m club facility with five international lenders, although the outlook for Russian companies in the syndicated loan market remains questionable going into the new year.

DCM bankers believe financial institutions will seek to hold back on launching new bond deals if markets cannot find a footing at the beginning of the new year.

European corporate bond issuers are already preparing to issue their first deals in the post quantitative easing era after December proved a very difficult month for those issuers who were looking to steal a march on the competition. However, conditions for January look only slightly better.

GlobalCapital's list of European corporate bond issues in euros and sterling, with links to stories about the deals.

The global high yield bond market has produced $320bn of new issues in 2018, up to December 21, 43% down on last year’s total of $563bn, according to Dealogic. Sentiment has turned progressively more bearish as the year has worn on, with concerns about US-China trade hostility and overvaluation of US equities biting.

Commerzbank and LBBW are looking to become one of the first issuers in the euro market in 2019, having both announced new mandates for covered bonds on Friday.

France will be looking to syndicate its longest benchmark since May 2017 next year, the sovereign announced on Thursday.

Business services and construction firm Kier only managed to secure a 38% take-up of its £264m rights issue after the share price collapsed following aggressive shorting during bookbuilding. That left the bookrunners and sub-underwriters having to subscribe for shares.