Europe

The strength of the demand for equity block trades in Europe was highlighted once again on Wednesday evening by Telenor when it covered an effective cleanup trade in Veon, the New York-listed Russian telecoms company formerly known as VimpleCom, in half an hour.

UK housebuilder Miller Homes this week brought its first high yield deal, coming at a time when spreads on sterling bonds with speculative grade ratings have tightened more than 100bp so far this year.

Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) will take over the London Bullion Market Association (LBMA) silver price benchmark on October 2, it said on Thursday, pushing back by one week the start date it had promised earlier in September.

de Volksbank opened a benchmark euro curve with a €500m senior offering on Thursday, testing the market’s appetite for short dated bonds in fixed rate format.

Despite the low volatility the corporate bond market has been experiencing for months there can still be fluctuations in new issue premiums and pauses after a sudden rush of issuance. However, the current flow of long lost issuers is helping iron out the bumps.

Crédit Agricole issued a six and a half year Swiss franc bond on Thursday, opting for senior preferred in a bid to diversify towards Swiss investors.

Order books for the dual tranche high yield bond deal from German pharmaceutical company, Stada, closed at noon on Thursday. Such was the demand for the secured tranche that the deal was was increased by €250m.

Deutsche Bahn raised A$600m ($475.4m) with its debut Kangaroo bond on Thursday, making it the first German corporate to issue in the market.

Vseobecna uverova banka and Stadtsparkasse München have both been keeping the sub-benchmark covered bond market busy with deals this week.

Slovenia tapped two euro bonds for €700m this week to exchange investors out of some of its dollar debt, in a move that bankers said shows the issuer is one of Europe’s most astute borrowers.

Aside from the leveraged deals for Stada and Miller Homes, three sub-investment grade borrowers printed deals in the high yield corporate bond market on Thursday. The three issuers all used different tenors to raise a combined €1.06bn.

Banks have been taking advantage of healthy demand for floating rate notes ahead of the European Central Bank's October meeting, with Goldman Sachs and Bank of Montreal the latest to use the format on Thursday.