Europe

GlobalCapital looks back over 2019 to assess the best euro covered bonds and banks, as rated by its Covered BondMarker. The best deals were from Lloyds, Santander and Rabobank. The best lead managers were BNP Paribas, ING and Natixis.

Christian Schreckeis, the former head of capital markets and investor relations at the Austrian treasury, has taken on additional responsibility for Austria's budget.

Swedish Export Credit Corporation has grabbed $500m of four year paper in what will almost certainly be the last SSA syndication of 2019.

As a nascent feature of the Schuldschein market, secondary trading still hasn’t developed market norms and many remain unclear about the process.

Gewobag, the A2/A+ rated German housing company, launched the first Schuldschein with a Euribor floor set below zero in November and the transaction has closed at €650m, according to a source close to the deal. The success of this deal will encourage arrangers to bring more companies to market with negative floors in 2020.

The co-founders of Boohoo Group, the UK online fashion retailer, have offloaded £142.5m of stock.

DNB Bank made the most of a favourable backdrop in the financial institutions bond market this week, selling a short-dated senior bond in sterling after recent prints in euros and dollars.

Montana Tech Components has monetised a small chunk of its stake in Varta AG, the German micro battery maker, ahead of the company’s inclusion in the MDAX, Germany’s midcap benchmark index.

Peter Lammer and Jan Hruska, the co-founders of UK cybersecurity company Sophos Group, have sold the last of their stock in the company before it is due to be acquired by US private equity fund Thoma Bravo next year.

Crédit Agricole printed a Rmb1bn ($142m) three year renminbi bond in China on Wednesday. Despite being a senior preferred deal and including write-down and conversion to equity clauses, both new to onshore investors, the Panda still managed to achieve tight pricing and a well-covered book. Rebecca Feng reports.

US private placement investors, who have long held firm on covenant structures, have started to notice early signs that their ranks may be breaking, and that 2020 may be a year when weaker covenant packages become more commonplace. But arrangers have resolutely dismissed this claim.

Swedish Export Credit Corporation appointed banks on Wednesday for the first syndicated public sector dollar bond since mid-November.