Europe

Holders of Privatbank’s 2015 bonds agreed to a reprofiling, the lender announced this week. But the terms of the agreement present those same bondholders with an incentive to scupper a similar agreement on Privatbank’s 2016 notes, analysts said.

Standard Chartered has hired a new syndicate banker for its London desk.

Citigroup has hired Giacomo Ciampolini, the equity capital markets block trade specialist on Goldman Sachs’s syndicate desk. He will have a dual role as head of Italian ECM and working on accelerated bookbuilds.

A pair of SSAs hit screens with euro benchmark mandates on Monday — and bankers are confident that market conditions will stay bright to support even more expected supply.

SR-Boligkreditt has mandated leads for a series of investor meetings with a view to issuing its first deal.

UniCredit Italy has become the first Italian bank to break the mid swaps barrier, pricing a €500m five year floating rate deal at three month Euribor +7bp, which equated to 3bp through on a mid swaps basis.

Kutxabank has mandated leads for Spain’s first social covered bond which is expected to be priced next week. This will be the third covered bond with assets that have an environmental or social remit and the second year.

LBBW has issued the third 10 year German covered bond in just over a week, and the first €1bn sized deal from the country since July. Though the public sector-backed transaction was only marginally oversubscribed, demand was driven by high quality German insurers, who requested and got full allocations. Kreissparkasse Koeln has also opened books for a four year Pfandbrief.

A trio of covered bond issuers offered seven year deals on Monday with Banca Popolare di Milano, Société Générale and Lloyds selling deals from a variety of jurisdictions. While each deal printed with appropriate premiums, the high level of supply has meant that investors were more discerning, resulting in slower bookbuilds.

Société Générale offered its first covered bond since February into a busy market on Monday. As a core bank and from a core eurozone country, the trade offers the highest quality of the three seven year deals in the market on Monday and the tightest spread. The issuer was, however, forced to offer a 7bp concession in order to price over French government bonds.

A member of Barclays FIG syndicate team, who focussed on covered bonds, has left the bank to return to his previous employer.

Bulgarian Energy Holding, the state electricity and gas group, is looking for €650m of loans as part of a renegotiation with two US power generators.