Europe

Friday marks one year since the launch of the Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosure’s final guidelines — a blueprint for companies to report to investors how they are facing up to climate change.

Corporate treasurers are sometimes portrayed as risk averse individuals who pore over financial models to deliver the safest funding for their companies. They do, however, also have a responsibility to raise those funds at the lowest cost. Pragmatism is a trait companies should value highly in a treasurer.

Several international borrowers are marketing in the Schuldschein market. Though there are several idiosyncratic reasons for each, the prevailing idea is the instrument is competing with the unrated bond market on price again.

Underwriters in the European high yield market that provided bridge financing in the first few months of the year for lightly covenanted deals are suffering amid investor pushback and failed offerings, said market sources.

Italy faced an auction test on Thursday morning and came out with a result that traders said “wasn’t that bad”, despite the political uncertainty facing the country.

German construction firm Hochtief opted for a €500m no-grow deal when it came to market for the first time as a rated company this week. The company gained a BBB rating from Standard & Poor’s in May 2017.

Tuesday’s senior issue from AIB Group struggled to get over the line, and sent a message to the market about waning investor demand for all but the safest bonds.

Two German issuers sold corporate bonds on Tuesday and on Thursday, mobile phone operator O2 Telefónica Deutschland made it a German treble the following day.

The introduction of the first exchange traded funds (ETFs) tracking the performance of European bank additional tier one (AT1) bonds could encourage investment in the asset class from a wider and more varied range of sources. But market participants are divided as to whether the emergence of these funds will be positive for the liquidity profile of the market.

Spain, fresh from its success with a 10 year benchmark on Tuesday, is eyeing a return to the long end of the syndicated inflation linker market towards the end of the year.

The Republic of Srpska, an autonomous entity in Bosnia and Herzegovina, has printed its five year Eurobond, but the final size fell short of the hoped for €200m.

The spin-off of GrazianoFairfield, the drive systems unit of Swiss engineering firm Oerlikon, was launched on Thursday with the unit valued at Sfr620m at the top of the range.