Europe

Vehicle makers and their finance arms continued their recent dominance of Europe’s investment grade corporate bond market. Renault, Volkswagen-owned Scania and Peugeot’s joint venture with Santander, PSA Banque, all priced deals on the same day this week, after three issues from their German peers in the previous seven days.

The investment grade corporate bond market has seen a “steady and sensible” start to April according to one investor as it attempts to stabilise following a volatile run through February and March.

UniCredit sold its remaining stake in Italian wind operator ERG for €118m to an eager investor base after markets closed on Tuesday evening.

Covered bonds issued by Swedish Covered Bond Corp and Overseas Chinese Banking Corp on Wednesday were thinly oversubscribed though investor preference was clearly slanted towards the most defensive five year Swedish offering.

Panic selling has hit the Russia bond complex with investors dumping securities as they race to reduce their exposure to the country for fear of further sanctions.

The head of covered bond origination at Société Générale is expected to leave the bank this week and is also relinquishing his role as deputy chairman of the European Covered Bond Council (ECBC).

ABN Amro ended a two year absence from the euro senior market on Wednesday, raising a healthy €750m of funding with the third green bond of the week.

Hannover Rück, the German insurer, came to the market on Wednesday with a senior bond, giving investors a rare opportunity to purchase its debt.

Legacy capital securities are proving rich pickings for specialist bank debt investors as institutions work out how to take them out of their funding structure. Meanwhile, covered bond investors are wary about their market.

Despite the political risk surrounding the formation of the Italian government, one asset manager believes its debt is better value than that of some of its peers in the peripheral Europe.

The IPO market has reopened after the Easter break, but whether investor sentiment has improved after a difficult run up to the holiday, which saw a number of deals pulled, has yet to be seen.

LG Chem sealed its equity-linked debut in style this week, offering investors a rare dual-currency trade that added some much-needed diversity to their Asian portfolios. The $608m deal was also only the second undocumented sale of convertible bonds in the region, writes John Loh.