Europe

United Overseas Bank managed to extend its curve with €750m of eight year funding in the covered bond market on Tuesday at levels were well inside its previous blowout deal issued in November. However, bankers off the mandate gave the deal mixed reviews.

Fisch Asset Management has established a corporate bond fund with a focus on investment grade issuers around the world.

Cordiant Digital Infrastructure Ltd, the UK investment trust focused on digital infrastructure assets, has unveiled plans for a £250m capital raising, three months on from its successful flotation on the London Stock Exchange.

Austria's Raiffeisen-Landesbank Steiermark’s issued a €500m 20 year mortgage covered bond on Tuesday that was barely subscribed and, for the first time in the covered market since September 2019, leads were unable to tighten pricing from the initial level.

Russia has mandated an exclusively Russian consortium of banks to arrange a euro bond issue. Market participants say the extra cash is not necessary but is Russia’s way of demonstrating its access to markets a month after its sovereign debt was slapped with further US sanctions.

Moody’s has placed Deutsche Bank on review for a ratings upgrade, praising the firm for making "swift and pronounced progress" towards its restructuring goals. The rating agency wants to determine whether the German bank can sustain a recent improvement in its earnings, which has largely been fuelled by an outperformance in its capital markets business.

A block trade in Befesa, the German metal recycling firm, proved that overnight deals can be done in the EMEA blocks market, despite heightened volatility.

In conference calls with the UK Debt Management Office on Monday, Gilt-edged market makers and investors gave their preferred maturities and timings for the UK’s debut green bond.

The International Capital Market Association has published definitions for terms used to indicate interest for bonds in the secondary market, such as “axe”, in response to frustration on the buy-side about dealers’ occasionally loose interpretations.

The €173m IPO of hGears, the German maker of high-precision gears for e-mobility, is more than three times covered, ahead of final pricing later today.

Secondary bond traders in the SSA and covered bond markets are focussed on Tuesday’s European Union new issue amid hopes that it will help draw a line as far as secondary market weakness is concerned. But with one eye on the European Central Bank’s June meeting, there is still some trepidation about prospective cuts in central bank asset purchasing.

UBM Development, the Austrian property company, issued last week what it believes is the eurozone’s first sustainability-linked retail bond — bringing one of the hottest techniques in corporate finance to a traditional market that has dwindled in the recent climate of negative interest rates.