Europe

Slovakia revised pricing downwards on its rare 50 year bond on Tuesday morning, after taking books of over €5.3bn with the first trade from the central and eastern Europe region for nearly two weeks.

The UK government has resumed the reprivatisation of RBS, the British bank that was nationalised during the financial crisis, having launched a £2.6bn block trade.

Delachaux, the French railway equipment maker, has set the terms on its Paris IPO.

A report that UniCredit is considering a merger with Société Générale — which would create a powerful champion in European corporate debt — provoked strong feelings among capital markets specialists on Monday. The story appears to have taken UniCredit’s management by surprise, just after a bruising period for Italy in capital markets. But although some like the idea in principle and others scorn it, none believe a merger at some stage is impossible.

The State of North Rhine-Westphalia (Land NRW) hit screens on Monday to announce a long dated euro benchmark.

The Basque Government will bring the first real test of investor appetite for Spanish public sector risk since a wave of Italy-led volatility hit the eurozone periphery last week, as it opened proceedings on an inaugural sustainable bond — its first issue of any kind in over two years.

The world’s largest salmon producer, Marine Harvest, sold the Nordic fish farming industry’s first bond for five years last week and as the industry scales up sources say a wave of issuance from the sector could be on the way.

French food distributor Alphaprim has raised a small amount of Euro private placement (Euro PP) debt.

Hamburg Sparkasse has appointed leads for a five year Pfandbrief. The mandate announcement has emerged as dealers report switching interest in Belgian covered bonds.

Vivat is looking to become only the second insurer to issue a restricted tier one (RT1) bond in euros, after announcing a mandate on Monday. It is also looking to find extra room for ineligible Solvency II capital by tendering a tier two bond issued by a subsidiary.

Bayer, the German life sciences company, this week unveiled the terms for a €6bn rights issue, after its acquisition of Monsanto, the US agrochemical and biotech company, cleared its final regulatory hurdles last week.

On Monday, Volkswagen reopened the euro corporate bond market after a blank week. The German car company’s financial arm was the only corporate issuer to brave the market on the day and, despite issuing a €1.5bn triple tranche deal, kept its longest maturity at six years.