Europe

The University of Southampton made its debut in the bond markets this week, printing a £300m April 2057 trade amid a torrent of investor questions over the impact of Brexit on the UK’s education sector.

French cheesemaker Fromageries Bel set final terms on a €500m seven year trade on Thursday, with bankers away from the bond heaping praise on the execution.

The European high yield market began printing €600m of new deals on Thursday, as issuer-friendly conditions allow repricings at ever lower coupon levels. But one investor sounded fears that such good times may not last.

Germany’s WL Bank priced a €250m tap of its 10 year mortgage backed Pfandbrief on Thursday, taking advantage of the squeezed market to price flat to its curve. Cheaper French covered bonds have performed well lately and profit taking was seen in the UK sector.

Swiss steelmaker Schmolz + Bickenbach opened the euro high yield market on Monday with a sub-benchmark sized deal, extending March’s stream of opportunistic refinancing deals.

The heads of funding at DNB Boligkreditt and Royal Bank of Canada told delegates at this week’s IMN conference that investors are well protected from a potential fall in house prices. UK covered bonds are similarly resilient, said a director at Fitch Ratings. And even in a hard Brexit, the privileged position of covered bonds would be upheld by UK courts, said a partner at Clifford Chance.

Gestamp Automoción, the Spanish car parts maker, has completed the largest Spanish IPO of the year so far, having priced the deal at the bottom of its initial price range late on Wednesday.

Moody’s has downgraded Novo Banco’s long-term senior debt ratings, with the ratings agency describing the Portuguese bank’s proposed liability management exercise as a ‘distressed exchange’.

UniCredit raised $2bn of senior debt in its first global bond offering for several years, fuelled by stronger sentiment following its €13bn rights issue.

OP Corporate Bank and Commonwealth Bank of Australia were not overwhelmed with demand for their fixed rate senior deals this week, as absolute spread levels for the product grind tighter and tighter.

Three more IPOs reached successful conclusions on Tuesday and Wednesday, including the largest in Poland for over two years.

FMS Wertmanagement has picked four banks for a short end euro transaction, making the most of the reopening of an area of the curve that has hosted very little public sector issuance in the past year.