Finland

On Thursday, the European corporate bond market saw its second Nordic telecoms new issue of the week. Finnish company Elisa used the same no-grow strategy as its Swedish peer Telia used on Tuesday, but for a smaller deal.

OP Mortgage Bank has issued the first Finnish covered bond of the year and did so at the same spread and in larger size than DZ Hyp managed little more than two weeks ago. With 10 year Bund yields heading towards zero, yield starved investors are chasing the market even tighter.

This week's scorecard looks at the progress Nordic agencies have made in their 2019 funding programmes halfway through the first quarter.

Rating: Aa1/AA+/AA+

The theme in the euro public sector market this week was large book sizes despite issuers paying very little concession, with Finland, the European Investment Bank (EIB), Madrid and the Joint Länder all keeping close to their curves.

All three public sector borrowers in the euro market on Tuesday received record order books, despite the spreads tightening by up to 5bp during pricing — which left little to no concessions for investors.

Finland and Madrid hit screens on Monday to capitalise on the red hot appetite for euro sovereign supply in the 10 year part of the curve.

Rating: Aa1/AA+

Anta Sports Products has launched its €2.2bn loan to back the acquisition of Amer Sports Oyj into general syndication, with HSBC joining the bookrunning group.

Appetite for eurozone sovereigns is showing no signs of slowing down after Ireland and Portugal joined Belgium this week in scoring their largest ever syndication order books. Several other borrowers sold euro trades on Wednesday, with more supply expected this week as the pipeline has “accelerated” ahead of next week’s parliamentary vote on the UK’s Brexit deal.

Public sector agencies from the Nordic region are adapting to S&P Global Ratings’ overhaul of its rating methodology. So far, only KommuneKredit has been downgraded under the new rating criteria, but others could suffer similar fates.

Anta Sports Products has mandated six banks for a €2.2bn loan to back the €4.6bn acquisition of Finnish sports brand Amer Sports Oyj.