Europe

Energa priced its first eurobond for four years at the tight end of guidance on Tuesday after attracting more than €1.25bn of orders.

It has taken just two US companies to bring seven tranches of new bonds to the European market this week, with the two year floating portion of each multi-tranche transaction gaining the most affection from investors.

After a month of much slower supply, increasingly desperate covered bond investors clamoured to buy a long nine year Hypothekenpfandbrief issued on Wednesday by DG Hyp. Though the bonds offered little new issue concession, interest was also boosted by the deal’s hefty spread over Bunds.

Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) paid a remarkably slim premium to print a new final-year callable senior bond from its holding company on Wednesday, after the issuer saw a opportunity to capitalise on the outperformance of UK credit in 2017.

Gulf issuance dominated the picture in the CEEMEA bond market during the first half of the week as Oman brought the year’s first bumper sovereign deal from the region and two UAE borrowers boosted supply.

Robust market conditions enabled the execution of one of the largest block trades of the year so far on Tuesday night.

Robust market conditions enabled the execution of the largest block trade of the year so far on Tuesday night.

Issuers crammed into the market on Tuesday with pharmaceutical firm Pfizer bringing the second multi-tranche Reverse Yankee this week, while Iberdrola ratcheted in pricing on a green bond — investors said they were enjoying the busy spell.

An Intesa spokesperson confirmed to GlobalCapital that the bank was in talks with 14 banks about syndicating its €5.2bn loan to finance the takeover of a 19.5% stake in Rosneft by the Qatar Investment Authority (QIA) and Glencore.

KfW and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development took full advantage of a strong environment to sell dollar benchmarks on Tuesday. Further dollar issuance is rumoured this week — with conditions so good that deals may come despite potential volatility from US president Donald Trump making his first speech to Congress during the New York evening on Tuesday night.

Covered bond supply is likely to recover over the next week or two, particularly in core Europe where spreads to Bunds have become more attractive, which bodes well for DH Hyp’s forthcoming Pfandbrief. But for non-eurozone issuers, senior funding is likely to prove more attractive.

French pharmaceuticals firm Ethypharm increased the sterling tranche in its term loan package on Tuesday, as it seeks to acquire UK-based Martindale Pharma.