Europe

In the wake of Venezuela’s launch of petro, an oil-backed digital currency under the control of the nation’s central bank, a host of sovereign cryptocurrency products have emerged. For some nations, it is a ploy to circumvent sanctions but, for others, it could provide an important piece of future infrastructure for blockchain based settlement.

Public sector borrowers hit new mid-swap spread tights for the year in dollars this week, but despite the enviable pricing on offer, bankers said that the currency was not offering the kind of super strong conditions that had been on offer last year. That might play in the mind of issuers lining up deals for next week — which is expected to be busy — with bankers saying borrowers might need to offer a little more concession than they have been used to.

The total issuance of investment grade corporate bonds in February was an underwhelming €14.8bn but the property sector has outshone all others in 2018 and this week was no different as investors had further diversification to consider.

Six of the nine investment grade corporate new issues in the last week of February were announced with a three letter acronym that, while providing clarity, served to frustrate investors keen to see greater volumes of issuance. WNG stands for “will not grow” and this week told investors that the meagre sized deals would not be increased, irrespective of demand.

The issues surrounding Italy’s debt burden refuse to go away, but not all market participants believe that a change of government on Sunday would be able to stall or reverse the country’s recent economic progress.

The European Central Bank may find that when it stops its government bond buying programme, investors that left the sector to find higher yields may not return, according to a credit analyst on an SSA treasury team.

Corporate broking professionals are feeling the pinch as European banks have trimmed staff in their UK corporate and investment banking operations.

Ignacio Blasco, who was a leveraged finance banker at Société Générale for 12 years, has joined investment bank Houlihan Lokey after a short spell in direct lending.

Governments and central banks around the world are announcing plans for state run cryptocurrencies. While some developing countries are keen to do so to circumvent international sanctions, cryptocurrencies from developed countries could form a major part of blockchain settlement infrastructure.

Garanti Bank and Vakifbank have joined the spring round of loan refinancings by Turkish banks.

Euro high yield bond buyers have been offered €3.5bn of double-B rated new deals since borrowers returned after the mid-February break caused by volatility in US equity markets. But lower rated paper is on its way.

This weekend’s Italian general election promises to be another mesmerising episode in the soap opera of Italian politics, but equity markets are largely confident that the work done to shore up the Italian banking system will be enough to offset any shock result on Sunday.