Europe

Kernel, the Ukrainian grain and sunflower producer, has signed a $100m pre-export finance facility with a syndicate of European banks.

The Kingdom of Belgium hit the market on Monday with its long awaited first green OLO. The sovereign received strong demand for the deal, tightening its spread by 3bp and pulling in a book of €12.7bn.

The spike in volatility and soggy performance of recent IPOs did not deter a fresh wave of companies across Europe from bringing new stock market listings this week.

The European Union’s upcoming April 2033 euro benchmark may have to offer a little more premium than usual if it wants to match a similar trade from the European Investment Bank last week and attract strong French demand, said bankers away from the mandate. Other euro supply in the pipe includes CPPIB Capital — also with a 2033 issue — and Rentenbank in sevens.

The Bank of England’s annual €2bn three year dollar issue was comfortably oversubscribed on Monday, but the smaller volume of orders compared with last year and lack of price movement reflected both the greater difficulty in printing short dated deals and investor pushback against super tight swap levels, said bankers. That may have played a role in FMS Wertmanagement’s decision on Monday to mandate for a five year dollar deal, they added.

Deutsche Bank has launched the IPO of DWS, its asset management unit, on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange – a key plank of chief executive John Cryan’s plan to revive the troubled bank's fortunes.

A trio of deals from German borrowers have been put to the vote on BondMarker. Read on to see how they fared.

Recaro Holding and Thomas Gruppe both increased Schuldschein transactions from their initial target sizes on Monday, as demand for Schuldschein paper keeps pace.

French electrical equipment manufacturer Legrand used the same no-grow approach as on its previous two deals for the only new issue in the investment grade corporate bond market on Monday.

Norsk Hydro has made a binding offer to buy Rio Tinto’s remaining European aluminium business, as the spurt of M&A activity shows little sign of slowing.

The long end has begun to rally in the rates market, and whilst this should boost longer dated covered bonds, traders are not convinced that there is scope for much flattening of the rates curve.

Spanish insurance firm Mapfre has amended and extended a €1bn syndicated loan, adding two years to the maturity and a sustainable financing element that could lower the cost.