Europe

Italy’s credit rating is dividing analysts. Some believe that it should have been downgraded by S&P on April 24 because of the country's ballooning debt burden, while others felt that the European Central Bank can keep the refinancing risk at bay.

Spreads in the financial institutions bond market have sprung back to more ‘normal’ levels lately, but issuers may have to wait a little while longer before capitalising on the improvement in conditions, given that many of them are side-lined by earnings blackouts.

Greencoat UK Wind, the highly acquisitive UK investment fund focused on UK wind farms has entered an agreement to acquire a Scottish wind farm for £320m. Greencoat has all the financing it needs already to complete the deal, scheduled to close in the first quarter 2023, but it is looking at further acquisitions and could turn to equity to finance it.

Deutsche Bank’s additional tier ones surged higher in value this week, after the German lender reassured the market with positive guidance on its first quarter earnings.

Crisis lending to emerging market sovereigns is coming ever more from multilateral development banks rather than commercial lenders, as the latter retreat to funding companies and other financial institutions.

The European Commission will put forward a legislative proposal next week that could give banks more room for flexibility when applying the IFRS 9 accounting standards.

Bpifrance became the first French issuer to sell a Covid-19 response bond on Friday, raising €1.5bn.

Citigroup has made Stefan Hafke chief country officer in Germany for good, after he took the job on an interim basis earlier this year.

Swedbank was paying less than fair value for a new euro senior deal on Friday, according to market participants, with the bank raising funding a day after publishing its first quarter results.

The European Council announced little in the way of progress following its meeting on Thursday night, but spreads for bonds from the eurozone periphery proved more resilient than they did following the Eurogroup’s meeting two weeks ago.

Wells Fargo was set to raise €3bn of senior debt in the euro market on Friday, becoming the first US bank to visit the currency following first quarter results.

Dufry, the Swiss duty free concession operator, attracted healthy demand for its emergency sale of new shares and convertible bonds on Thursday night — a transaction designed to raise as much liquidity as possible so it can survive the coronavirus pandemic, which has led to a huge drop in the number of shoppers at its airport stores.