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It comes to something when after a long week at work, Munich’s bankers cannot unwind with a quick trip to the Austrian Alps. At 5pm on a Friday it is common to see suited men and women scurrying for their cars and making straight for the border on the A8.
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When did you last see a $25bn book for a perpetual non-call 10 year additional tier one capital deal with two triggers for temporary principal write-down, one based on the issuer’s capital ratio and the other based on the capital ratio of its parent group, both of them set at different levels?
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The European Commission has a very important decision to take by June 30 for the covered bond market and by extension, European banks.
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Russian banks would do well to follow the example the Turkish banks set this year in the MTN market.
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The Swiss bank’s new-look FIG team has confounded the sceptics, writes David Rothnie.
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Some market participants are concerned that the European Central Bank’s asset quality review (AQR) and subsequent European Banking Authority stress tests are going to hold back a eurozone recovery next year. Better that than the alternative.
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Oh, the perils of working for National Australia Bank when the country that lends the institution its name manages to win a game of something against England. Just ask Teddington Cricket Club clubhouse manager Nigel Owen, who also dabbles in a bit of global syndicate directing at the firm.
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Electricité de France was set to start the green bond craze among corporate issuers with an expected benchmark deal this week. Vasakronan got there first, with a deal yesterday, and was joined by Bank of America. The green bond market has unmistakably arrived. But it will only have real economic value — and therefore value for the environment — when deals start to price tighter than the issuer’s ordinary debt.
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How many banks does it take to sell an additional tier one deal? Only one, apparently. But that didn’t stop Barclays mandating a cast of 19 lead managers and co-leads for its AT1 debut this week. Reciprocity much? Still, there was much to admire about the deal but it does not mark this market’s coming of age.
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Even though it wasn’t technically a bail-in, the restructuring of Co-op Bank serves as an example for how to formulate a bondholder-driven bank rescue. The only problem is that the lessons we have learned are hard ones — that forcing losses on bondholders is fraught with difficulty, and that the Co-op template can only really work for small banks.