Europe

Madrid hit the market with a 10 year sustainable bond on Tuesday, raising €1.25bn at its tightest ever spread to the Spanish sovereign, selling into its largest ever book.

Several chances to demonstrate commitment to corporate sustainability have occurred in the US private placement market recently, and the market has fallen short in almost every case. Most of the PP market is as unfamiliar with using the term 'ESG' as it is to yelling 'YOLO'.

Belgium was able to print a large 20 year benchmark bond on Tuesday, pulling in a book of €27bn. But despite the size of the demand, investors were reluctant to follow the price more than 1bp from initial guidance.

JP Morgan has promoted a whole new layer of leadership in its investment bank, reaching down to debt capital markets, equity capital markets and M&A. At the top of the tree, Carlos Hernandez has moved from being head of global investment banking to executive chair and has appointed new co-heads of global investment banking.

By opening up its debut social bond to retail investors, Munich highlighted an often overlooked strength of the socially responsible investment (SRI) market. Distributed correctly, these funding tools demonstrate the true impact of ethical investing.

Alstom, the French maker of trains and railway equipment, has struck a €7.45bn deal to acquire Bombardier’s trains division and will partly finance the trade via a €2bn rights issue later this year or in early 2021.

Traders told GlobalCapital this week that low yield levels were ‘starting to become a problem’ for covered bond buyers, following a sustained rally in rates, adding that it was extremely hard to find offers on bonds in many parts of the market.

BNP Paribas was guiding investors towards a coupon in the 4.75% area for a new additional tier one (AT1) on Tuesday, as it looked to price its deal at the lowest level ever acheived by a European bank in the dollar market.

Banca IFIS sold a senior bond this week, as Italian bank bond spreads rallied following Intesa Sanpaolo’s takeover bid for UBI Banca.

HSBC will not be making cuts to its equity capital markets or its equity trading capabilities after announcing the results of a strategic review on Tuesday. The bank will be reducing headcount in sales and research, but said that its execution ability in ECM will not be affected in any way.

Trading levels given are bid-side spreads versus mid-swaps and/or an underlying benchmark and bid-yields from the close of business on Monday, February 17. The source for secondary trading levels is ICE Data Services.

Intesa Sanpaolo caught the market by surprise when it launched a takeover bid for UBI Banca on Monday night. The announcement sent credit and equity valuations surging higher, with investors pinning their hopes on consolidation in the Italian banking sector.