Europe

Coventry Building Society's newly issued Godiva Mortgages RMBS offered almost three times the spread of its sterling covered bonds.

Banco Popolare and Banca Popolare di Milano may look to raise further capital as the two banks close in on agreeing a final merger plan with the European Central Bank this week.

Evgenia Tyurikova has been hired as Sberbank’s new head of private banking.

Nederlandse Waterschapsbank pushed its dollar curve out to 10 years on Friday with its third green bond.

Orkla, a Norwegian supplier of branded consumer goods, sold 11.94m shares in Swedish aluminium firm Gränges on Thursday, through an accelerated bookbuild that raised Skr824m ($100m).

Crédit Agricole issued the biggest euro covered bond benchmark since 2007 this week, achieving a competitive cost of term funding at historically cheap rates. Apart from the ECB’s new stimulus measures which helped demand, the deal size was somewhat enlarged by the bank’s recent tender according to Nadine Fedon, CEO of Crédit Agricole Home Loan SFH.

Italian TV producer Giglio Group's €3.5m minibond began trading on the Milan-based ExtraMOT Pro exchange this week — showing that the market is still finding issuers, despite the European Central Bank's efforts to boost bank lending.

Barclays and Royal Bank of Scotland followed HSBC into the holdco senior market this week, as UK issuers took advantage of strong investor demand for holding company level funding.

In this round-up, China's cross-border trade settlement fell to a near three-year low in February, CME reports record levels of trading in its offshore RMB futures, RMB spot trading fell but swap trading surged on the Moscow Exchange, Singapore renewed its currency swap line, and Deutsche Bank sets up a the first interbank host-to host platform by a foreign bank in China. Plus, a recap of GlobalRMB's top stories this week.

Intesa SanPaolo captured the robust improvement in peripheral market sentiment following the European Central Bank’s meeting last week with its €1.25bn seven year.

A postponed deal as issuers clashed in the SSA market left a blemish on a strong week for the improving public sector dollar bond market. But such occurrences may well become the norm as issuers crowd in to narrow windows, writes Craig McGlashan.

As further news of banks being unofficially asked to stay out of arranging a Russian sovereign bond was leaked this week, gas giant Gazprom entered the Swiss franc market and drew one of the largest ever books for a note in the currency, demonstrating the pent up demand that exists for Russian paper.