Europe

A debut green covered bond from OP Mortgage Bank, and a green Pfandbrief from Berlin Hyp, that were issued this week priced through mid-swaps and tighter than any other covered bonds issued so far this year, yet they still managed to attract broad and diversified demand.

France became the latest European sovereign bond issuer to confront the problem of inflated orders with the sale of its second green OAT via syndication on Tuesday. But instead of bringing the spread in to price extremely tight like Italy and Spain did earlier in the year, France instead attempted to control the sale process by engaging with investors to persuade them not to put in excessive tickets in the first place. Burhan Khadbai reports.

Russian Railways ventured into the Swiss franc market this week to sell the first hybrid corporate bond in over two years, a sign of a maturing Swissie market, according to local market participants.

Europe’s slow rollout of Covid-19 vaccines is beginning to damage confidence in a quick economic rebound this year, leading some investors to step back from value trades in pandemic-exposed cyclical stocks and enter new positions in high-growth momentum trades, particularly renewable energy stocks.

Barclays and Standard Chartered gave euro investors rare opportunities to build subordinated exposure to UK banks this week. The issuers were looking to benefit from strong market conditions during a more stable trading period for interest rates.

OP Mortgage Bank’s green debut €750m 10 year covered bond was priced on Thursday in line with where a Pfandbrief might have been expected to come. At the same time, National Bank of Canada made a rare appearance with a €500m seven year that was priced well inside fair value.

The Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey has brought relief to emerging market investors by exceeding market participants’ expectations and delivering a 200bp rate hike.

Investors were left disappointed when Vantage Towers, the telecoms towers division of Vodafone, closed its Frankfurt IPO on Thursday. Despite attracting huge demand, a tight allocation strategy left many equity funds with little or no shares.

Despite the disruption that the coronavirus pandemic and, more recently, volatility in global markets have brought to emerging market debt, issuers in the CEEMEA region are not backing away from their pivot towards ESG financing. Though concerns about greenwashing are holding the market back, new sustainability-linked and transition structures are tempting issuers.

Piraeus Bank is hoping to raise €600m of additional tier one capital as part of a set of actions aimed at strengthening its balance sheet. This week’s announcement comes a few months after the Greek lender had to convert €2bn of government-held contingent convertibles into equity.

German state-owned development bank Kreditanstalt fuer Wiederaufbau (KfW) made a rare public green outing in the offshore renminbi market this week, raising Rmb1.25bn ($192m) from a deal that saw strong participation from green and ESG investors.

Crédit Agricole has sealed its third senior preferred Panda bond in the China market on a particularly challenging day that caused eight domestic deals to be postponed, amid lingering default concerns and rising government bond yields. Addison Gong reports.