Europe

For CEEMEA bonds, 2017 was a record breaking year and one which pushed the boundaries of product, tenor, and issuer. The $200bn of bonds raised in CEEMEA, and the $140bn raised in Latin America are the highest annual volumes on record. Investors’ seemingly insatiable appetite for EM debt fuelled massive inflows into the asset class and kept the many idiosyncratic risk events – from Qatar’s regional isolation to deteriorating relations between Turkey and the US– contained. Picking out the deals of the year for 2017 was not easy for GlobalCapital’s editorial team, but after much deliberation the below were chosen.

BNP Paribas opened the new year’s unsecured market on Tuesday with a seven year senior non-preferred deal in dollars, undeterred by a less attractive cross currency basis swap.

Is Financal Kiralama (Is Leasing), Isbank’s leasing arm, is expected to sign a $75m loan which it has mandated Bank ABC to arrange.

Italian banks are expected to begin issuing non-preferred senior bonds for the first time, after the country’s parliament approved a package of reforms as part of its latest budget law.

Syndicate managers in the corporate bond market are back at their desks and ready to get the year off to a fast start, with few thinking the start to 2018 will be any different to January of last year.

Agence France Trésor is about to finish deciding the scope of eligible green projects that could be funded by its green OAT issuance in 2018, and will announce this to the market by mid-January.

GlobalCapital's list of European corporate bond issues in euros and sterling, with links to stories about the deals.

The Italian retail bond market is going through a major shake-up in which alternative investments are set to replace bank bonds among the securities of choice for Italian households. Tyler Davies reports.

Italy has weathered, with remarkable resilience, a turbulent year in European politics. While it still faces its own turmoils — an approaching parliamentary election in particular — its recovering economy and process of economic and political reforms have given investors the confidence to put money to work in Italian assets. The next 12 months will see the ECB reducing its quantitative easing programme and a host of new regulatory challenges, but the Italian treasury is confident that it, and the banks with which it works, will be able to adapt to the new challenges and opportunities 2018 holds.

The truth about MiFID II, probably the most far-reaching reform of European equity capital markets for many years, will begin to be revealed on January 3, when market participants have to start implementing this huge new addition to the rule book.

Banca Carige's largest shareholder, Malacalza Investimenti, has subscribed for another €25m of shares in the bank, about 36% of those that were available to it under an option it held. This means Carige will raise €544m in its capital increase.

Sweden’s finance ministry is expected to receive in early January the report of a special commission it set up a year ago to consider how to promote green bonds, including the merits of the Swedish government issuing one.