Europe

Bawag PSK became the first bank to print a senior unsecured note offering a negative yield in Swiss market history this Wednesday. Swiss bankers wonder how the small A3 rated Austrian borrower managed to sneak into the record books.

UK government bond yields fell on Thursday, despite the Scottish government starting the process of launching a second independence referendum.

Maturing deals issued by Washington Mutual and National Bank of Greece show covered bonds doing precisely what they're supposed to — redeem in full and on time.

CNP Assurance’s pioneering tier three bond in euros this week will have had funding teams at Europe’s insurance firms gripped. The French firm’s trailblazer in a new asset class has opened an irresistibly cheap source of capital and there is little standing in the way of a flurry of copycat trades, writes Tyler Davies.

Political wrangling on both sides of the Atlantic this week produced contrasting fortunes for two currencies in futures markets, with the Mexican peso receiving a boost and the British pound slumping to some of its worst ever levels against the US dollar.

Unilever’s attempt to raise prices on goods it sells to UK supermarkets would not have covered all of its costs from the recent depreciation of sterling, a Unilever executive has told GlobalCapital.

The European IPO market has run into rough terrain, with three flotations abandoned this week and a fourth in trouble. Investors have been shaken by the poor trading of Nets, the Nordic payments group, fears of tighter monetary policy and volatility in sterling, write Aidan Gregory and Jon Hay.

FMS Wertmanagement became on Thursday the first public sector borrower since June to print a euro benchmark with a maturity below five years.

Export Development Canada will on Friday join a rampant dollar benchmark market and could open end up giving issuers more options after choosing a more daring maturity than those executed in the last few weeks.

The IPO of TI Fluid Systems, the UK maker of car brake and fuel lines, was scrapped on Thursday — the third flotation to be cancelled this week. That of Biffa, the UK waste management group, is hanging in the balance.

French agency Unédic is looking to set a trend with its new medium term note format to replace its BMTN programme as the chosen vehicle for one to six year debt

Spain’s Banco de Crédito Social Cooperativo joined Italian duo Credito Emiliano (Credem) and Credito Valtellinese (Creval) in the tier two pipeline this week, as banks finally felt confident enough to launch new transactions after a tricky September.