Europe

Investors have begun to push back against ever tighter levels in the public sector dollar market, with a deeply sub-Libor trade this week failing to find full subscription. But there was not much concern ahead of next week’s Easter holidays, with some strong funding already raised in the first quarter and the new Federal Reserve chair’s first Federal Open Market Committee meeting passing this week without any great surprises.

HSBC’s two tranches of additional tier one (AT1) notes, with a combined size of $4bn, took the market’s attention this week, as Ibercaja Banco prepares for its own much smaller trade.

The traditional investment grade debt buyers that have ventured into Europe's high yield and leveraged loan markets since quantitative easing sucked much of the juice out of high grade markets are showing no sign of losing their thirst for levfin, despite the looming end of QE, writes Victor Jimenez.

Do bank capital investors have very short memories or are they just greedy? We're about to find out, with Banca Carige planning to offer investors subordinated debt after restructuring the same instruments just a few months ago. Wider issues in the Italian banking sector, such as provisioning for non-performing assets and political uncertainty, have also failed to deter the issuer. Jasper Cox reports.

Russian gold miner Nordgold and coal company Siberian Coal Energy Co (Suek) signed syndicated loans in the week leading up to Vladimir Putin’s victory in the Russian general elections.

French supermarket group Carrefour returned to the equity-linked market on Thursday to sell a $500m equity-neutral convertible bond due in January 2024.

UK property company Hammerson has signed a new £1.5bn three year revolving credit facility, bringing in a dozen banks for a financing aimed at slashing the funding costs of its acquisition target, Intu.

French engineering consultancy Altran has set the term on its €750m rights issue to finance its acquisition of US global design and engineering company Aricent.

A sharp move wider in short end swap spreads has allowed public sector borrowers to offer substantial pick-ups to US Treasuries at deeply sub-Libor levels, but investors are beginning to rebel.

French food company Danone received a strong response on Monday when it sold its inaugural social bond, the first from a corporate issuer since the social bond principles were set out by the International Capital Market Association in June 2017.

Jes Staley opened up this week, explaining why Barclays has taken a contrarian bet to dedicate more balance sheet to the markets division of its investment bank this year.

Finnish telecoms company DNA braved choppy conditions this week with a new €250m seven year bond to fund its tender offer for bonds due in 2018 and 2021 following a roadshow.