Europe

Triple-B rated fragrance and flavourings company Firmenich sold its debut bond this week, a short end Swissie deal that was the prelude to dual tranche euro trade.

The oil price slump on Monday spelt trouble for issuers in the already underperforming Norwegian krone bond market. Amid this turbulence, state-owned Norwegian airport operator Avinor flew in on Wednesday to print a Nkr2bn ($187.8m) dual floating and fixed tranche deal.

New ECM head at UniCredit — NIB treasurer heads to SEB — Mills takes up newly created position at UBS

The UK Debt Management Office has announced a borrowing programme that will, in the next four months alone, exceed the country’s largest ever annual borrowing volume. Gilt yields have stayed steady, thanks to investors’ faith in the Bank of England’s asset purchase facility.

Bluestep Bank has issued its first covered bond and the first Swedish transaction secured on mortgages that are not prime. The deal offered a juicy pick-up to prime benchmarks, but still provided a competitive and diversified source of funding.

Fundraising by continental European companies in response to Covid-19 has lagged behind those in the UK, which have raised more than £3bn since mid-March, but it is beginning to gather steam, with several large capital raises this week, including sales of new shares and convertible bonds by Just Eat Takeaway.com, the online food ordering marketplace, and Dufry, the Swiss operator of duty free concessions.

Bpifrance is preparing to issue a bond which will be used to provide loans to companies in France to help them overcome the economic difficulties of the coronavirus pandemic.

Europe’s banks sniff opportunities amid the crisis as they look to build out their corporate broking businesses, but they will face fights to remove incumbents, writes David Rothnie.

Belgium and Ireland announced increases to their 2020 funding requirements this week, as they look to counter the impact of the coronavirus pandemic.

Telecom Italia and Vodafone have monetised part of their stakes in Inwit, the Italian wireless telecommunications infrastructure company, reopening the market for secondary share sales in Europe.

GlobalCapital's Silas Brown spoke to Mathieu Chabran, co-founder of European alternative asset manager Tikehau Capital. They discussed how the relatively new private debt market in Europe will navigate its way through the pandemic, who the winners and losers will be in the asset class, and what opportunities may emerge from the dust.

Credit Suisse took a $294m hit from marking leveraged finance underwriting exposure to market in the first quarter, its results on Thursday showed, as March’s volatility and jump in credit spreads took their toll.