German Sovereign

A pair of French regional issuers could soon join a German sub-sovereign in selling long dated private placements in yen. Japanese investors are keen to push along the curve in search of yield and look beyond their usual fodder of European agencies to large sub sovereign and regional issuers, SSA Markets understands.

The rampant start to 2014 by peripheral eurozone sovereigns is clear to see in this week's funding scorecard, with the region's comeback kids Ireland and Portugal halfway and a quarter way through their funding programmes already. Spain has also made promising progress in its attempt to hit what is its largest ever funding target, with nearly a fifth of its total already in the bag. Italy will look to move into double figures from its 4% status in the coming weeks with a widely expected syndication.

International appetite boosted a benchmark trade from the Joint Laender (44) on Wednesday, with interest from several new investors helping to buoy the deal.

The Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia sold a debut New Zealand dollar trade on Tuesday, a short dated floater. Kommuninvest sold a similar trade on the same day and bankers expect to see more New Zealand dollar deals out in the near future.

German sub-sovereigns kept new issue markets ticking over this week, taking advantage of a quiet market to get deals in before the burst of benchmarks in January. State of Lower Saxony, State of North-Rhine Westphalia and State of Berlin all tapped existing lines this week.

Several German states are expected to make last-minute forays to the debt capital markets in December, following in the lead of Baden-Württemberg which tapped 10 year bonds on Thursday afternoon.

The end of November finds almost every sovereign in the scorecard more than 90% funded for the year. Italy's cause was helped in no small part by a bumper €22.3bn domestic inflation linked bond at the start of the month. The UK - with a funding year running from April March - is also well on track with 70% of its programme completed.

The State of North-Rhine Westphalia priced the first oversubscribed deal in euros in a week on Tuesday as initial price thoughts offered at a healthy spread to mid-swaps caught investors’ attention. The level of demand enabled the issuer to print a larger deal than targeted at the tight end of guidance.

Land NRW was the only issuer out with a benchmark mandate on Monday afternoon as SSA Markets went to press, but a few more issuers are waiting in the wings to pull the trigger before new issue markets begin to shut down ahead of year end.

State of Baden-Württemberg has around €300m of cash left to raise this year, after collecting €1bn from its first benchmark in nearly five years this week — a trade that reached full subscription but only after a slow book build.

The sovereign funding scorecard expands beyond Europe this month with the addition of Japan. The country has a whopping ¥156.8tr (€1.2tr) target this year but is well on track having raised ¥136.2tr so far.

The Joint-Laender provided the only benchmark euro activity on Wednesday, selling a €1bn 10 year. The deal fell short of full subscription owing to the tight pricing, though the leads said they considered it an acceptable outcome.