Europe
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Zurich Insurance sold a Sfr200m hybrid bond on Thursday, benefiting from the relative resilience of its home market as Swiss franc investors got their first taste of insurance capital this year. -
The extraordinary versatility of convertible bonds — but also the market’s unpredictability — were highlighted on Thursday when Vodafone launched an unprecedented £2.88bn bond designed to achieve the near impossible: debt-like funding that counts as equity but is not dilutive to shareholders, writes Jon Hay.
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Banca Popolare di Vicenza came a step closer to launching its listing and capital increase this week, as it announced the date of a shareholder meeting to approve the deal.
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Romania priced euro benchmark taps of its 2025s and 2035s on Thursday evening in London at new issue premiums of 10bp and 16bp, respectively, according to a syndicate official on the deal.
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JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley, bookrunners of Vodafone’s unprecedented £2.88bn mandatory convertible bond, have just gone out with a message saying the book for the deal is covered. The book will close at 7.45pm London time.
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Thames Water priced a £300m senior secured no-grow bond on Thursday, clinching the deal after two weeks of volatility in its outstanding bonds.
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A healthy pair of benchmarks this week and strong conditions mean the euro market is wide open for a pair of supranationals to bring planned deals next week.
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Helaba brought the biggest Pfandbrief since 2011 on Tuesday, pulling in €1.25bn with a long four year deal. It was the first ever euro benchmark covered bond issued with a zero percent coupon, but given the persistent low interest rate environment it is unlikely to be the last, with some bankers alarmed at the prospect of negative yielding covered bonds.
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Crédit Agricole explicitly backed the newly proposed type of French senior debt in its full year results this week, as support for the asset class appears to be spreading across the country’s financial institutions.
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Spain took advantage of much better conditions compared with turmoil last week to cut its three and five year borrowing costs at auction on Thursday — although its 10 year yields rose.
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