Europe

Any concerns over Italy’s market access were vanquished on Tuesday when the sovereign received €110bn of orders for a dual tranche bond syndication, allowing it to raise €16bn as it makes inroads into its enlarged funding task in response to the coronavirus pandemic.

The prices of Western Canada Select and West Texas Intermediate dropped below zero during trading on Monday, spelling trouble for issuers in the already underperforming Norwegian krone and Canadian dollar.

Helaba has been far more active than other arrangers in the Schuldschein market, launching at least three deals after the pandemic struck European capital markets in March. While others told clients to postpone deals until clarity emerged on price and investor appetite, the Frankfurt-based Landesbank has ploughed ahead.

With its more relaxed rules around pre-emption rights, the UK has led from the front by allowing embattled companies to raise equity to keep themselves alive during the coronavirus pandemic. The market's flexibility means there have been no damaging delays waiting for for formal rule changes. Such pragmatism is admirable, although more must be done to protect retail investors from dilution.

A eurozone bad bank would have been difficult to institute even without the coronavirus crisis to spur it on. Now, with countries diverging on moratorium measures in response to the pandemic, it’s verging on impossible.

Covered bonds easily deliver the most competitively priced funding for banks, but the real value for issuers lies in the long end which, for the time being, is too expensive.

Trading levels given are bid-side spreads versus mid-swaps and/or an underlying benchmark and bid-yields from the close of business on Tuesday, April 21. The source for secondary trading levels is ICE Data Services.

A measured reopening of the primary bond markets in the last month has left banks in a good place to launch new deals after first quarter results, according to FIG DCM officials.

Syctom, a French metropolitan agency responsible for household waste management in the Île-de-France region, printed its debut bond at the end of last week, selling a green bond that will go towards funding sustainable waste management projects in the Paris region.

There will probably have been quieter inductions into a new job. Nathan Piper has joined Investec as an equity researcher to cover upstream oil and gas.

Supervisors are encouraging financial institutions to use all of their capital and liquidity buffers as necessary during the coronavirus crisis, signalling that lenders will be given a "significant" amount of time to restore their regulatory ratios to adequate levels.

The Covid-19 global pandemic is not an unmitigated disaster for everyone, as several companies showed on Monday night by selling new shares to take advantage of the unexpected opportunities that the pandemic has created for them.