Europe

On Tuesday multi-tranche and green bond issuance returned to the investment grade corporate bond market, leaving just the hybrid asset class untouched in 2018. That didn’t last long, as Engie and Aroundtown launched new hybrid deals on Wednesday morning, one of which set new lows for the product's coupon and spread levels.

NordLB has mandated joint leads for a 10 year Pfandbrief which some bankers believe will prove an ‘interesting’ trade, reflecting the view that spreads are tight to competing agency paper.

Société Générale issued a tightly priced 10 year French covered bond on Wednesday with the €750m deal size, ensuring a solid level of excess demand and good potential for a stable performance.

CaixaBank issued €1bn of senior preferred notes on Wednesday as it looked to prefund ahead of a bond maturing in May and the end of the European Central Bank’s (ECB’s) targeted longer-term refinancing operations (TLTRO) programme.

On Wednesday French toll road operator Autoroutes du Sud de la France followed the path its compatriot Orange had taken on Tuesday by issuing a €1bn 12 year new issue. Meanwhile Italian auto finance bank FCA Bank was also in the market with its first benchmark floating rate note.

Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) was marketing a new senior bond in the euro market on Wednesday, following a fast start for Australian bank bond issuance in 2018.

Banque Fédérative du Crédit Mutuel (BFCM) has sold £450m of new senior notes in the sterling market, which is enjoying its fastest ever start to a year.

The Republic of Turkey sold a $2bn 10 year bond on Tuesday just as a sell-off in US Treasuries took hold, but it still managed to raise a book of $5.3bn for the deal.

Traditionally, January causes investors the headache of trying to keep up with the number of deals coming to market. This January however, it was starting to look like investors may have had the opposite problem.

Two US senators have scolded the European Commission's efforts to unilaterally change agreed rules for the oversight of foreign clearing houses in the wake of Brexit, backing the toughening position of Commodity Futures Trading Commission chairman Christopher Giancarlo.

Though bankers may have expected the first quarter of 2018 to play out with a glory run of slam dunk deals, a recent back-up in US Treasury yields has left some big name investors calling the start of a bear market in bonds.

Turkiye Sinai Kalkinma Bankasi batted away suggestions on Tuesday that its deal would suffer from pricing on the same day as the Turkish sovereign, printing a $350m five year bond from a book of $1.15bn and 15bp inside initial price guidance.